The property, comprising one city block on the crest of Georgetown Heights, had an excellent view of the Potomac River.

A focal point is the collection of numerous objects that belonged to George and Martha Washington, making Tudor Place the largest public depository of objects belonging to the first Presidential family outside of Mount Vernon.The decorations included four chair-cushions embroidered by Martha Washington in 1801 "executed upon coarse canvas in a design of shells, done in brown and yellow wools, the highlights being flecked in gold-colored silk" as well as a decorative cover for a bed whose trimmings also were embroidered by Martha Washington.

[10] Thomas and Martha Peter raised eight children in Tudor Place, and hosted the Marquis de Lafayette during his 1824 tour of the United States.

When the third child and eldest son, John Parke Custis Peter, came of age, his father conveyed a farm around Seneca, Maryland.

The farm also included the redstone Seneca Quarry, whose stone Peter would bid on and win the Smithsonian Institution Building project in 1847.

[13] In about 1869, Robert E. Lee, the former commanding general of the Confederate army in the 1861–1865 American Civil War, paid his last visit to the District of Columbia at Tudor Place before his death on October 12, 1870.

[15][unreliable source] In 1890, the year that Beverley Kennon died and at a time when Brittania W. Kennon was the oldest living descendant of Mrs. Washington, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine published an extensive article that detailed the collection of Martha Washington's relics that were maintained inside Tudor Place.