Built in the 1770s, it was the home of Fielding and Elizabeth Washington Lewis and is the only surviving structure from the 1,300-acre (530 ha) Kenmore plantation.

The house is architecturally notable for the remarkable decorative plaster work on the ceilings of many rooms on the first floor.

The Foundation also owns nearby Ferry Farm, where George Washington lived as a child.

The mansion's rear frontage was oriented to the Rapahannock River for easy transportation access.

During the American Civil War, the plantation house and outbuildings were used as a makeshift Union military hospital after the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864.