Designed in 1774 by William Buckland, the British-trained architect who also worked at George Mason's Gunston Hall in Virginia, this is widely regarded as the finest Georgian house in America and the only colonial building still standing that was designed by Buckland. The doorway — a carved frontispiece copied from a plate in Palladio's Four Books of Architecture — is the most photographed colonial entrance in the country and has been reproduced in textbooks for generations.
Inside, the interior carvings include garlands of fruit and flowers around the dining room overmantel that took Buckland months to complete; he died in 1774 before the house was finished. The collection includes paintings by Charles Willson Peale, period furniture by Annapolis cabinetmaker John Shaw, and decorative arts assembled to evoke the original owner Matthias Hammond's taste. The house has never been altered structurally since completion.