The striking stone Tudor-style mansion was constructed from salvaged pieces of the 12C Priory of St. Sepulchre that stood in Warwick, England. In 1925 Richmond-born diplomat Alexander Weddell and his wife, Virginia, had the priory disassembled and commissioned architect Henry Grant Morse to reconfigure its stone facade and elaborate interior. The current design is modeled in part on Sulgrave Manor, ancestral home of George Washington in Northamptonshire, England.