The central section of the mansion was built circa 1845, as a two-story, single-pile, center hall-plan, Greek Revival style frame dwelling by Colonel Williamson Simmons.

Also on the property are the contributing icehouse and well house built in the 1840s, a secondary dwelling built in the 1920s, an open cart shed and concession building both constructed in the 1940s, and a swimming pool and pool house, dating from the 1940s when the estate was owned by prominent Petersburg businessman and politician Remmie L. Arnold.

As a Petersburg city councilman, Arnold had pushed through a budgetary increase earmarked for equality and fair access to public housing and recreational facilities for everyone including people of color, and increased budgetary considerations for the black schools in Petersburg.

In a highly unusual move for a Democratic politician in the Jim Crow South, Arnold promised to 'deal with all Virginians fairly' whatever their ethnicity which won him the endorsement of Arthur Wergs Mitchell, the first African American to be elected to the United States Congress as a Democrat.

This article about a property in Prince George County, Virginia on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.