It was designed by architect Frank Furness for George R. Preston, a New Orleans banker who settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The carriagehouse and other buildings have since been demolished, and the land subdivided, leaving the main house and boathouse on 2.4 acres (1 ha).

It relates to Furness's Undine Barge Club (1882–83) on Philadelphia's Boathouse Row, and the architect's own summer cottage, Idlewild (c. 1890), in Media, Pennsylvania.

Ormonde is "architecturally and historically important as an outstanding early example of the type of large mansions constructed chiefly as summer residences by wealthy clients in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries near the shores of Cazenovia Lake in central New York.

"[2]It followed Cedar Cove (1884), designed by architect George Browne Post, the first "summer cottage" built on the lake.