Marshy Dell was built in two stages, each with two bays. Although the house is clapboarded, small windows and massive stone chimneys at each gable end hint at the log construction underneath. After Gilbert McKown completed the first section, his father, stonemason Andrew McKown, arrived from Ireland. The elder McKown constructed his own little one-andone-half-story house in the yard. Little changed, and now a guest quarters, Andrew's uncoursed limestone cottage is regarded as an untarnished architectural transplant from the “Ould Sod.”