Originally built as a hunting lodge, it was also a tavern and post office, and served as part of a hotel for much of the 19th century.

After 1903 the house served as the Ricketts family's summer home; they kept it even as they sold over 65,000 acres (26,000 ha) to the state of Pennsylvania from 1920 to 1950.

The original mansion is an L-shaped structure, two-and-a-half stories high, with stone walls 2 feet (0.6 m) thick.

[2] The Clemuel Ricketts Mansion is on the southwest shore of Ganoga Lake in Colley Township in the southeastern part of Sullivan County.

[6] The Susquehanna and Tioga Turnpike, which followed the lake's western shore, was built between 1822 and 1827; it connected the Pennsylvania communities of Berwick in the south and Towanda in the north.

[11] However, according to Tomasak's The Life and Times of Robert Bruce Ricketts, the brothers purchased the lake, tavern, and land on April 13, 1853, for $550 (approximately $20,000 in 2025), and had the house built from 1854 to 1855.

Clemuel was named postmaster of a new post office at the lake on October 3, 1853, and received a tavern license from Sullivan County on August 7, 1854.

In 1872 Ricketts used lumber from the mill to build a three-story wooden addition about 100 feet (30 m) north of the stone house, with a verandah connecting the two.

In 1876 and 1877, Ricketts ran the first summer school in the United States at his house and hotel; one of the teachers was Joseph Rothrock, later known as the "Father of Forestry" in Pennsylvania.

[7][8][18][19] By 1874 Ricketts had renamed Long Pond as Highland Lake,[20] and by 1875 had named the highest waterfall on Kitchen Creek as Ganoga Falls.

[21][22] That year the North Mountain House hotel was featured in John B. Bachelder's travel guide Popular resorts, and how to reach them, which praised its location in a virgin forest, the lake and nearby waterfalls, and opportunities for hunting, fishing, and hiking.

Pennsylvania senator Charles R. Buckalew suggested the name Ganoga, an Iroquoian word which he said meant "water on the mountain" in the Seneca language.

Guests could enjoy tennis and croquet, and a lawn stretched from the house east to the lake, which offered boating and bathing.

[27] In 1903 another large fire on North Mountain threatened the sawmill in the lumber town of Ricketts northeast of the lake.

There was daily passenger service to Wilkes-Barre and Towanda, and the line also served freight trains hauling ice from the lake for use in refrigeration from 1895.

Thomas Henry Atherton of Wilkes-Barre was the architect for a new wing that was added to the stone house in 1913, as well as renovations to the original structure.

Beginning in 1920, the Ricketts heirs began selling land to the state of Pennsylvania, but still owned over 12,000 acres (4,900 ha) surrounding the house, Ganoga Lake, and the glens with their waterfalls.

Atherton, the architect for the 1913 addition, helped prepare the HABS architectural drawings, which gave the house's name as "Ganoga".

"[43] Clemuel Ricketts, the architect of the stone house, was very interested in architecture from the colonial period and had traveled widely.

Clemuel designed the house in the colonial or Georgian style in the early 1850s; construction began in either 1851 or 1854 and finished the next year.

In 1935 the ground floor of this part of the house included the main door and entrance hall, living room, parlor, library, and stairs.

[2][7] In 1897 or 1903 a formal garden was added north of the stone house, on the site of the razed wooden structure where most of the hotel guests had stayed.

[7] In 1913 a two-and-half story wing was added on the north side of the original house, which was renovated; Thomas Henry Atherton was the architect.

The NRHP nomination form lists two other structures on the property: a utility building made of brick and covered in stucco east of the house,[b] and a large barn to the southwest.