The Richneck manor house's foundation was discovered during construction of the George J. McIntosh elementary school (named for a modern Newport News educator), and became an archeological dig, then listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

[3] The earliest proprietor of Richneck Plantation was Robert Rich, second Earl of Warwick and a prominent member of the Virginia Company.

In 1628, Zachariah Cripps patented this area, and later sold the land to Miles Cary Sr., who lived nearby at Windmill Point.

After he died repelling Dutch invaders in 1667, it was inherited by his son Miles Cary (1655-1709), who after he came of age, constructed a manor house and lived there with his wife, Mary Milner, and family.

The Richneck plantation house burned in 1865, at the end of the American Civil War, and visited by a descendant, Wilson Miles Cary in 1868.