Although no specific builder has been tied to the house, William Phillips, James Dinsmore, and John Neilson have each been suggested as the individual responsible for design and construction. The house is a three-part Neo-Palladian Jeffersonian structure. The pedimented central section, with a Tuscan portico, is flanked by lower symmetrical wings. Built for Nimrod Bramham, who served in the Virginia House of Delegates, it passed to the Reverend James Fife, an important figure in the Baptist General Convention.