The first construction had a two storied front section with a one-story extension to the rear. The dining room and the winter kitchen were in the one-story section. Between 1839 and 1907 the house was owned by Dr. Philip Barbour Pendleton. He added a second floor to the rear part of the house and extended the main roof to cover the new rooms of the house. A later generation of Pendletons rebuilt the house in the Colonial Revival style after 1910. They added the present Neoclassical portico. The next owners, Anne Pendleton Forrest and Dr. William Mentzel Forrest, added to the back a design by architect Stanislaw J. Makielski of Charlottesville. The complex includes a number of outbuildings, including two separate doctor's office buildings, a garage, barn, a house for smoking, and the Pendleton family cemetery.