[1] Originally the site was part of a 10-acre (4.0 ha) subdivision acquired by Robert Cribb, Brisbane politician and property dealer, in 1861.

In 1863 Cribb sold this to fellow Scottish immigrant Kenneth McLennan, a stonemason from the town of Conon in Scotland, who had arrived in Brisbane in 1855.

[1] In 1878 McLennan raised a £300 mortgage on the property from Brisbane land speculator James Gibbon, which may have financed the addition of a northern brick and stone wing to the house about this time.

[1] Around 1900 a timber extension was added to the southern side of the kitchen, and two internal walls were removed in 1917 to create a larger bedroom.

[1] At Conon, McLennan and his wife Ann Grant, whom he had married at Ipswich in 1855, raised a family of ten children.

[1] Following the death of his wife in 1912, McLennan moved from Conon and died at New Farm, aged eighty-seven years, on 1 November 1916.

[1] The house block remained in the McLennan family until 1934, when it was sold to Sir Neil O'Sullivan, a Brisbane solicitor and federal cabinet minister.

It rests on a rubble foundation of Brisbane tuff which was collected from the property, and is capped by a galvanised iron roof which was shingled originally.

Dowel balustrading, square timber posts and fretwork brackets of an unusual thistle pattern supply the exterior decoration to this section.

[1] The rendered brick northern wing with coursed stone foundations and a corrugated iron roof was added in the late 1870s.

Despite the subdivision of the original holding the garden setting of the house is important in the understanding and appreciation of the significance of the place and its long history.