It was built from 1796 to 1797 by John Wise, a prominent entrepreneur, in the late eighteenth-century Georgian architectural style.

During the 1940s and 1950s, it fell into ruin, and in 1956 proposals were made to gut the building; there were opposed by the Historic Alexandria Foundation.

[4] A businessman from Wyoming, Robert V. New, bought the house, saving it from being destroyed, and financed its major renovation.

[5] The Lloyd House is characteristic of the early post-colonial style in Virginia and is a fine example of Federal domestic architecture.

[4] It is a two-story rectangular brick building with a five-bay front on the Washington street side, four chimneys, and a gabled roof with three dormers.