It was built for John McConnochie, Chief Engineer to the Bute Docks, by the Gothic revivalist architect William Burges.

[3] Today, the house is of particular interest for three reasons; as the precursor of Burges' own house in Kensington, as evidence of one of the few architectural errors Burges made in his career[3] and as a template for an architectural style which had a significant influence on late Victorian and early Edwardian Cardiff.

"By its powerful early French Gothic style, its steep roofs and boldly textured walls (the house) revolutionized Cardiff's domestic architecture.

[10] The windows of the last gable conceal the major error of the interior; on entering the visitor is immediately confronted with the underside of the colossal main staircase.

Henry-Russell Hitchcock, the American architecture critic, thought Park House "one of the best medium-sized stone dwellings of the High Victorian Gothic".