It was built from 1858 to 1860 and is one of the best preserved examples of Richard Upjohn's distinctive asymmetrical Italian villa style.

It is the only surviving residential example of Upjohn's Italian villa style that was especially designed to suit the Southern climate and the plantation lifestyle.

It has a massive four-story tower, windows of variable size and shape with brownstone trim, and a distinctly Southern division of family and public spaces.

The building was designed and constructed for Edward Kenworthy Carlisle as his primary family residence and the centerpiece of his 440-acre (1.8 km2) estate.

He migrated with his mother, Susan Curry Carlisle, to Perry County, Alabama as a young man.

Carlisle had difficulty in finding labor skilled enough for such an ambitious house, but he finally found a master mason, Philip Bond, in November 1858 and work then commenced.

He entered into a business relationship in nearby Selma with his son, Edward Carlisle, Jr., and his son-in-law, Alexander Jones.

Carlisle then died in 1873, leaving the property to his wife, Lucinda, who divided her time between it and a home in Selma.

She increasingly used Kenworthy as a summer residence only and gave it to her only surviving child, Augusta Carlisle Jones, in 1899.

It was at that time that the plasterwork was mutilated, many marble mantles were broken, and the stained glass destroyed, though it all had been partially documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1934.

The story involves the purported ghost of a young woman in the fourth floor tower room, who awaits the return of her lover.

[2] Kenworthy Hall is closely related to a series of Italian villa style residences that Upjohn designed in the Atlantic Northeast, most notably the Edward King House in Newport, Rhode Island.

But in this house Upjohn designed a residence adapted to a hot, humid climate and a plantation lifestyle.

The bricks are laid in a stretcher bond pattern, with belt courses of brownstone above the foundation and at each floor level.

Brick panels are inserted below the windowsills of the parlor, sitting room, and all twelve of the fourth-floor tower windows.

The front of the house also has a "family" entrance to the left of the tower, entered through a small arched loggia.

The rear elevation has a centrally placed set of entry doors that enter the building behind the main staircase.

The parlor is entered from the right side of the entrance hall and has an ornate plasterwork cornice with a central ceiling medallion.

The library is furnished by a pair of built-in arched bookcases, features an elaborately molded plasterwork cornice, and measures roughly 18 by 22 feet.