[3] After an extensive renovation, the building reopened in 2018 as the South Carolina Historical Society Museum.

[4] The building is in the Greek Revival style, with Doric porticoes north and south, and achieves a sophisticated appearance with clean and crisp lines, and relatively little ornamentation.

Inside, the building has an oval stair hall lit by a cupola.

The contractor, John G. Spidle, built it in 1827 to the design of Robert Mills, the nation's first domestically-trained architect and an early advocate of fire-resistant buildings.

In 2016-17 the society completed a major renovation intended to modernize all systems, to provide a secure, climate controlled environment for the storage of historic documents, and to provide both an events venue and modern museum space.