The house was completed in 1860 for wealthy cotton planter and slave owner John Williams Boddie who died at the end of the American Civil War.

[3] In 1869 the 500-acre former plantation, including the house, was bought for $10,500 (~$213,616 in 2023) by the Freedmen's Bureau and the American Missionary Association to become the campus of a school for Black students who were recently freed from slavery.

[4] Initially the building was used for a day school and then for housing female students in the upstairs bedrooms.

[6] The rebuilding project funds came from a combination of state and federal grants.

The building is a two-story Italianate plantation house with a gabled roof, bracketed cornices, and a belvedere.