Woodville is a one-and-a-half-story frame house with moderately pitched gable roof pierced by four dormer windows and two brick chimneys at either end.

A full veranda stretches across the east (front) elevation, and a one-story kitchen wing projects from the south, with a small garden next to it.

[5] Neville came to the region in 1774 from Winchester, Virginia, shortly after buying 14,000 acres (5,700 ha) five miles (8 km) south of Fort Pitt, located at the forks of the Ohio in what is today downtown Pittsburgh.

During this time it is believed the present farmhouse at Woodville was also built, since Neville reported a tenfold increase in his slave holdings in 1780.

Three years later, the name "Woodville" was used on the land patent, and was mentioned in a report in the Pittsburgh Gazette when his sister-in-law was married at the house.

This put him in the position of collecting the excise tax on whiskey imposed at Alexander Hamilton's suggestion to pay off the states' war debts.

Neville and his servants fought them off, but were unable to protect Bower Hill from being burned down despite reinforcements by soldiers from Fort Fayette.

[5] George Washington eventually sent in the Army to put the rebellion down, an occurrence seen as the first test of federal authority under the newly adopted Constitution.

They made some changes to the exterior, such as repainting it brown and then yellow, and adding some Victorian Gothic touches like the porch latticework and the lancet windows on some of the dormers.

NHA oversaw restorations that included painting the house white again and bringing in an early 19th-century pianoforte similar to the one Cowan had bought.