The farm house, after the death of its owner, Robert Taylor Preston, in the following decade, served as a college infirmary from 1882 to 1886.

In the 1940s it briefly was a clubhouse for returning World War II veterans who lived in a trailer park surrounding the building while attending Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

For some time, Solitude housed a human nutrition and food laboratory and interior design studios and offices.

Much of the project was funded by the Mary Morton Parsons Foundation of Richmond, Va.[4] The house is situated in a landscaped park adjacent to the central campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute.

Pulice concluded in his thesis that the remaining log outbuilding, long believed to be either a doctor's office or kitchen, is a surviving slave cabin and servants quarters.