Serving as the official residence and offices of the British governors of North Carolina from 1770 until the American Revolution, the original building was seized by provincial militia in 1775.

After assuming office Governor Tryon worked with architect John Hawks to draw up plans for a government house similar to other British colonial structures of the time.

[1] Tryon told the legislature that the sum was not substantial enough for the plans he and Hawks had created; building it "in the plainest manner" would cost no less than £10,000 without including the outbuildings he envisioned.

"[1] The cost of the building exacted great controversy in the North Carolina backcountry where most viewed it as an unnecessary, extravagant display of England.

It proved to be too much and served as a major catalyst in North Carolina's War of the Regulation; which culminated in the Battle of Alamance on May 16, 1771, and later led to the hanging of seven men.

The unpopular Tryon left North Carolina on June 30, 1771, to become Governor of New York on July 8 of that year.

This Commission consisted of 25 people appointed by the governor, with the task of rebuilding the Palace using the original plans.

The John Wright Stanly House is an outstanding example of Georgian architecture and has served as home to several generations of his family, some of whom were important figures during the American Revolution, the early national period, and the Civil War.

Anchored by 20th-century Colonial Revival interpretations of earlier periods, these also include an 18th-century Wilderness Garden featuring native plants that greeted the first European settlers in this area and lush displays favored by the Victorians.

While Governor Tryon seems to have had little interest in horticulture, two maps of New Bern drawn by Claude J. Sauthier in 1769, when the Palace was still under construction, reveal two different garden plans.

In the collections of the Academia Nacional de la Historia in Venezuela they found a garden plan Palace architect John Hawks gave to Venezuelan traveler Francisco de Miranda, who admired the Palace greatly when he visited New Bern in 1783.

In 1768, Governor Tryon employed him to draw a series of North Carolina town maps, including one of New Bern.

Similarities of style between the town maps and the garden plan discovered in Venezuela suggest that Sauthier created them all.

Before undertaking the Palace project, Williams had served on the faculties of Harvard and North Carolina State Universities and assisted in the restoration of the gardens at Mount Vernon and Stratford Hall.

These survive both in flood and drought, and provide food and shelter for a variety of wildlife In October 2010, Tryon Palace opened the North Carolina History Center, a 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) facility on six acres.

Visitors enter the Pepsi Family Center via a virtual time machine that takes them to the year 1835 in Craven County.

The Center provides an intergenerational, interactive learning adventure for parents and children working as teams: sailing a ship, distilling turpentine and producing naval stores, piecing an electronic quilt, and helping the shopkeeper find merchandise for customers in the dry goods store.

This is a green-designed project including the construction of wetlands that filter storm-water run-off from a 50-acre area of the New Bern Historic District.

And, the North Carolina History Center is planned for LEED certification at the silver level (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design).