When second owner Solomon Whitman added a lean-to onto the existing room-over-room 3-storey building in the mid-eighteenth century, he expanded his family's living space and extended the roof line to create the classic saltbox silhouette for which Stanley-Whitman House is famous.

It is likely that the younger John Stanley never inhabited the house, having soon thereafter sold the partially finished structure and six acres of land to Ebenezer Steele (1671–1722) in December 1720.

His account book (currently in the collection of the Connecticut Historical Society Museum and Library) provides information about the types, patterns, and cost of the textiles he produced during his lifetime.

In 1772, six months after his wife Susannah's death, Solomon relocated to Main Street, although his descendants continued to occupy the house until 1922.

Kelly installed seventeenth-century style casement windows, replaced wall sheathing and floors, and even reversed the orientation of the first-floor staircase to return the house to its "original" colonial appearance.

In September 1935, Austin Barney transferred his ownership of the Stanley-Whitman House to the Farmington Village Green and Library Association.

The Farmington Museum originally housed an array of Indian artifacts and colonial antiques mostly collected by former owner Katherine Barney.

[18] Over a twenty-year period beginning in the 1970s, museum administrators reevaluated the documentary history, mission, interpretation, and even the name of the historic house.

[19] Researchers revisited primary source material, both confirming and refuting previously held beliefs about the house and its occupants.

A Yale University-led archaeological team examined the area surrounding the historic house, unearthing animal bones, pipe fragments, coins, and hundreds of other objects.

Programs, events, classes, and exhibits encourage visitors of all ages to immerse themselves in history by doing, acting, questioning, and engaging in Colonial life and the ideas that formed the foundation of that culture.