The Hampton Mansion was the largest private home in America when it was completed in 1790 and today is considered to be one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the United States.

[2] Its furnishings, together with the estate's slave quarters and other preserved structures, provide insight into the life of late 18th-century and early 19th-century landowning aristocracy.

During the American Revolutionary War, the ironworks was a significant source of income for the Ridgelys, producing cannons and ammunition for the Continental Army.

[6] He had 10,590 feet (3,228 m) of irrigation pipes laid in 1799 from a nearby spring to provide water to the Mansion and the surrounding gardens, which he was extensively developing.

[6] The mansion overlooked a grand estate of orchards, ironworks, coal mining, marble quarries, mills, and mercantile interests.

[3] More than 300 enslaved people worked the fields and served the household, making Hampton one of Maryland's largest slaveholding estates.

[4] In 1820, an orangery was built on the grounds.Charles Carnan Ridgely frequently entertained prominent guests in the Mansion's 51 ft. x 21 ft. (16 m by 6.4 m) Great Hall, such as Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and Revolutionary War general, the Marquis de Lafayette.

[3] Eliza Ridgely (1803–67), John's wife and the subject of Thomas Sully's famous portrait, Lady with a Harp,[10] purchased many artworks and furnishings for the mansion.

She was a noted horticulturist and had successively larger and more elaborate gardens cultivated on the grounds, with a large variety of flowers and shrubs grown in the estate's greenhouses and tended by some of the 60 enslaved people purchased by John Carnan Ridgely.

[20] The NPS subsequently acquired additional acreage containing original Ridgely structures, bringing the park to its present 62.04 acres (25.11 ha) size.

Conservators of the property's furnishings and paintings said that the need to stabilize temperature and humidity levels inside the mansion was "urgent due to unacceptable environmental stress".

[22] The Park Service's chief ranger for the Hampton National Historic Site said afterwards of the $3 million in renovations, "I don't think the mansion has ever looked better".

Visitors are provided a guided tour of the mansion, where the original furnishings owned by the Ridgelys may be seen, along with the family's collection of oil paintings, silverware, and ceramics comprising some 7,000 objects.

[2][25] In addition to the mansion itself, visitors may view nine surviving original structures on the grounds built during the 18th to mid-19th century period:[26] Self-guided tours may be made of the grounds during hours when the park is open to the public, including the farm, formal garden, family cemetery, and two stables built of stone for the Ridgely family's thoroughbred horses.

A prize Cedar of Lebanon, brought back from the Middle East as a seedling by Eliza Ridgely, is one of the largest in the U.S.[4] Numerous special events are scheduled throughout the year, such as chamber music concerts and harpsichord performances presented in the mansion's ornate Great Hall, milking demonstrations at the dairy by costumed milkmaids, carriage rides, hay harvesting by scythe, corn harvesting, blacksmithing demonstrations, and jousting reenactments.

[34] In May 2008, a $195,000 (~$271,001 in 2023) challenge grant was announced by the National Park Service, matched by an equal amount to be raised by Historic Hampton, for further restoration of the mansion's interiors.

A local newspaper columnist described the Tea Room as "offering gentility ... a fireplace nearly as big as a wall and mullioned windows with sills that are nearly 2 feet (0.61 m) thick.

The view is rolling lawns ..."[18][38] When the Tea Room was closed by the National Park Service on January 1, 1999, officials said they did so because of the potential fire hazard posed by operating a kitchen in the main park building and the possibility of insect or rodent damage to historic items in the mansion, as stated in the General Management Plan adopted by the NPS the previous year.

While it "may be a pleasant place to enjoy a meal ... that is clearly less important than the need to preserve Hampton's buildings, objects and landscapes for future generations," the Park Service stated.

[18] Since 2006, the women's group has renewed efforts to have the Tea Room reopened, saying it would draw more visitors and repeat business from locals to the park.