[3] Kenmure was expanded to three-stories in 1855 with a central one-bay dwarf portico, a rear addition and a low, hipped roof topped by a three-bay cupola.

Colonel Lamb described Kenmure as a typical southern home of these antebellum days, where besides the 'white folks' there was a colony of family servants from the pickaninnys just able to crawl to the old gray-headed mammy who nursed 'old massa.'

It was an ideal home for a boy: sail and row boats on the shore for sailing and fishing, horses in the stable for riding and driving, peaches, pears, cherries, figs, pomegranates, raspberries, currants in the garden, and roses, pink lilacs, snowballs, hollyhock and all the dear old-time flowers with which to treat his girl and boy friends – with a lovely lawn, bordered with crepe myrtles, bayberry and calycanthus between the mansion house and the river, upon which to romp and wrestle and to enjoy those outdoor games which the children of the founders of Norfolk town in 1682 brought from the motherland.

The Hermans began its restoration, re-configuring the house as a single family residence above offices on the basement and first floor levels.

In the 1980s the basement and first floor accommodated the architectural firm Herman had co-founded with his father-in-law Bernard (Bernie) Betzig Spigel[5] and August (Augie) Zinkl.