The house was a center of political and military strategy during the American Revolutionary War, when Jonathan Trumbull was Governor of Connecticut.

The house is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, five bays wide, with a side-gable roof, wooden clapboard siding, and a large central chimney.

The first floor of the interior is divided into a parlor, dining room, and bedroom, with a kitchen and pantry in the ell.

The War Office was originally connected to the house by a secret passage, and it functioned as a major logistical center for the northern states.

The Connecticut chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution purchased the property in 1934 and have operated it since then as a historic house museum.