[5] Completed in 1903, this house was used for the first time by the reigning monarch of Canada when King George VI, accompanied by his wife, Queen Elizabeth, arrived in 1939 as part of his cross-Canada tour that year.

Among many public receptions and garden parties held annually, the lieutenant governor's New Years Day levée remains a popular and well-attended highlight of the holiday season in Victoria.

The management of the residence is, however, overseen by the British Columbia Government House Foundation, a charitable, non-profit organisation that was in 1987 established by Lieutenant Governor Robert Gordon Rogers, along with his Council at the time.

The walls are of rusticated blue, grey, and pink British Columbia granite with Haddington Island stone trim,[11] and the roof, which is two storeys high in itself, has steeply pitched, chalet-style gables and numerous dormer windows.

A rendition of the Royal Arms of British Columbia is visible in the gable above the Ballroom's south facing bow window, which commands a view over Ross Bay and the lower part of the Fairfield neighbourhood, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the Olympic Mountains in Washington state.

The main entrance is in the centre of the north facade, beneath the original Tudor Revival porte cochère of the previous Government House, which had been inspired by Rattenbury's own Hatley Castle.

[11] The mansion also holds numerous art pieces in the Crown collection, including works by British Columbia First Nations artists especially commissioned by the lieutenant governor.