By the late nineteenth century, the house was abandoned and had fallen into disrepair, but a Coffin family reunion held on the island in 1881 ignited renewed interest in the property.

Today, the house stands as a monument to the lives of the island's earliest English settlers and offers visitors a glimpse of daily life on Nantucket in the seventeenth century.

Physical evidence indicates that the center-chimney dwelling originally featured twin front gables that allowed light into the second-floor rooms, and from that height on the hill the Coffins and their children could see for miles.

Winthrop Coffin of Boston — another off-island descendant of the original Tristram — stepped up to fund restoration of the house and his architect of choice, Alfred F. Shurrocks, began the work in 1927.

Although Shurrocks determined that the house had originally had twin front gables, a decision was made to restore the structure to its more familiar appearance and to replace eighteenth-century double-hung sash windows with diamond-paned casements, which they felt more suited a seventeenth-century dwelling.

On October 1, 1987, lightning struck the house,[3][4] toppling the chimney, destroying half of the roof, and melting the electrical wiring, causing damage that required two years (and about a million dollars) to mend.

The structure was so solidly built that since restoration it has continued to hold firm on Sunset Hill, where it tells the story of the early English settlement of Nantucket in the seventeenth century.