The original timber framing, which uses a series of transverse post and beam bents connected by sills and wall plates, differing from the traditional European grid pattern, is now covered in weatherboard.

[1][3] The ground floor has, in the past, been dropped about 12 feet (3.7 m) below street level, due to the effect of tides and renovations on its footings.

They sold in 1849 to Joseph Hicks, whose family continued to operate it as a mill until 1916, when they converted it into a tea house and museum.

That letter was translated by a Cultural studies professor at Stony Brook University and will be displayed at the mill when the restoration is complete.

The other was from a Roslyn builder and descendant of a Hessian soldier who fought in the American Revolution, Steven Speedling, detailing the workers on the earlier restoration.