When Edward Thurston Mankin came to Richmond from Warren County he was a brickmason. By the mid-1920s he had become the operator of a factory that specialized in high-quality brick and special commissions. His products were used in buildings as far away as New York City, and he was the primary provider for Colonial Williamsburg and for Bottomley's Richmond-area houses. The massive beehive brick kilns that once sat adjacent to the Mankin House are now gone. Mankin built his quirky brick house near his plant in the early 1920s. A combination of Colonial Revival and Arts and Crafts idioms, the house and surrounding elements—brick paths, walls, and a strange pergola-like structure—were advertisements for his product. The rambling plan of the house gives the impression that the construction was additive; the different wings and chimneys appear to be demonstrations of construction experiments.