The house was designed by the architect William Buckland in 1773–1774 for wealthy farmer Matthias Hammond of Anne Arundel County, Maryland.

It was modeled on the design of the Villa Pisani in Montagnana, Italy, as depicted in Book II, Chapter XIV of Palladio's work.

Owner Matthias Hammond probably never occupied his elegant house because he abruptly left Annapolis for his family's country estate in 1776.

Architect William Buckland adapted Palladio's Villa Pisani design to satisfy the tastes of colonial Annapolis.

He re-designed the plan to accommodate the tastes for asymmetrical regional preferences and modified the hyphens from Palladio's arched entries to more practical single storey connecting links.

This device provided better protection from fire and gave the overall design a greater degree of visual solidity and three dimensionality (see image at right).

[4] The Hammond–Harwood House was featured in Bob Vila's A&E Network production, Guide to Historic Homes of America, in the two-hour segment on the Mid-Atlantic States.