Riversdale, is a five-part, large-scale late Georgian mansion with superior Federal interior, built between 1801 and 1807.

Once the manor house and centerpiece of a 739-acre (2.99 km2) slave plantation, Riversdale was built for Belgian émigré Henri Joseph Stier, Baron de Stier, who lived in the William Paca House in Annapolis, Maryland immediately prior to building Riversdale.

The house was begun in 1801 by Henri Josef Stier and his wife Marie Louise Peeters on almost 800 acres (3.2 km2) of land north of Bladensburg.

The elder Stiers returned to Belgium in June 1803, however, and Rosalie and George Calvert took up residence at Riversdale, bringing with them a large number of enslaved people.

[6] For thirteen years Riversdale housed the Peeters/Stier collection of European paintings, which was unique in the United States at that time.

That collection included more than 63 paintings by such artists as Peter Paul Rubens,[7][8] Anthony van Dyck, Jan Brueghel the Elder[9] and Titian.

[10] Before they were packed, Rembrandt Peale persuaded Rosalie Calvert to display them for two weeks at Riversdale in April 1816.

[6] Fox and Lutz acquired an adjacent 174-acre (70 ha) property that belonged to George Henry Calvert and began to develop it as the town of Riverdale Park.

The sale of Riversdale in 1926 to Senator Thaddeus Caraway of Arkansas, was a consternation to Johnson, whose lease ran until 1929.

A foreclosure sale ensued, and in 1932, Thomas H. Pickford purchased the property, selling the following year to former Oregon congressman Abraham Walter Lafferty.

Lafferty lived at Riversdale from 1933 to 1949, attempting to buy the parcel to the south of the mansion from Hattie Caraway.

Lafferty sold Riversdale in 1949 to the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission for its Prince George's County regional office.

[6] Riversdale is a Federal style five-part mansion with a 2-story main block and 1+1⁄2-story end pavilions linked by 1+1⁄2-story hyphens.

The roof is clad in wood singles, painted red, with four stucco-covered chimneys, one of which is a dummy for the sake of symmetry.

[6] The basement contains a number of spaces, used principally for storage, including a wine cellar and an interior connection to the dairy under the front stairs.

Archeological studies have revealed the foundations of other structures, including a water tower, wash house and hothouse.