[3] The main house was built beginning in 1842 by the Cartmill brothers for their orphaned cousin, Miss Ann Sisson, and finished circa 1855.

Ann Sisson inherited the property, then married Charles Gorgas, Pennsylvania-born nephew of a Rockbridge county ironmaster.

Stuart B. Carter, a Virginia lawyer and state delegate who played a key role in defeating the Byrd Organization's Massive Resistance policy, bought it from Bertha Pechin, his wife's aunt, and did further renovations and restorations.

The symmetrical two-story, three-bay, two-room-deep, center-passage-plan main house is in brick and constructed in the Greek Revival style.

In 1906, about a decade after the property was purchased by the Pechin family from near Cleveland, Ohio, a two-story east wing and front porch were added in American bond style and painted.