A 10-minute walk from the museum’s main campus, the house is a National Historic Landmark and singularly surviving masterwork of early American architecture. Originally this property swept down through terraced gardens to the North River, where Captain Peirce could dock his ship at the foot of his own property.

This house is perhaps the only building of its kind of McIntire’s design that survives with two phases of his architecture and design evolution intact, enabling comparison between young McIntire and mature McIntire in the same building. One of the reasons the house is so important is because when it was built in 1782, the entire west half of the house was finished in the Georgian style. The central passage and the entire east side of the house was left completely unfinished and in a barn-like state with just open framing until the wedding of Jerathmiel’s daughter in 1801. At that time, Peirce hired McIntire to finish the other side of the house to prepare it for the wedding.