[3] The ground which Government House was built on was formerly the site of a kraal where Lobengula, King of the Northern Ndebele people won a battle.

[1] When it was built by Cecil Rhodes, it was one of the first permanent British buildings constructed in Rhodesia.

[4] The garden contained a large tree under which Rhodes and Lobengula negotiated treaties.

In 1964, the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson met Joshua Nkomo of the then banned Zimbabwe African People's Union there to discuss Southern Rhodesian independence under black rule against the wishes of the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia Ian Smith.

[11] In 2018, the new President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced he would be renovating the State House to restore it after the neglect under Mugabe.