The estate includes a grand plantation house, a great lawn, and terraced gardens, and has panoramic views in all directions.

He developed the land with the Burwell-Morgan Mill and normally spent summers nearby (the Blue Ridge Mountains' foothills being cooler and less subject to malaria than the Hampton Roads area).

After the American Revolutionary War and his first wife's death, Col. Burwell remarried and with the assistance of former General Daniel Morgan began building the plantation house he called 'Carter Hall' during 1792–1800.

Burwell added the large portico, which is "by tradition" ascribed to a design of William Thornton, architect of the United States Capitol.

During his stay General Jackson permitted his surgeon, Dr. Hunter McGuire, to perform a cataract operation on George Burwell on the portico.

private Nathaniel Burwell (1838–1862) fought in the Stonewall Brigade and ultimately died that fall of wounds sustained at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

In the house the central hall and east room were combined into a single space and the original wainscoting was replaced with richly-detailed neo-Georgian details based on woodwork at Shirley Plantation, Virginia.