Shipping merchant and enslaver Richard Richardson commissioned this house around , and his family moved in upon its completion in The home was designed by English architect and relative to Richardson by marriage William Jay but was constructed by builder John Retan and likely a team of free and enslaved men in his charge.
The property also included a two-sided privy and a building located on the east end of the lot, which was divided into a carriage house and slave quarters. The Richardsons only lived in the home for a few years before they saw a steady decrease in their prosperity.
After the combination of the financial Panic of , a yellow fever epidemic, a fire that destroyed half the city, and the death of Frances and two of the children, Richardson decided to sell the house and move to Louisiana, where he had family and business interests.
By , the Bank of the United States owned the home, which they leased to Mary Maxwell as a boarding house. The Marquis de Lafayette was a guest of Mrs. Maxwell when he visited Savannah in March as part of his whirlwind tour of the United States for the 50th anniversary of the American Revolution. He lived here with his wife, Sarah, their six children, and up to fourteen enslaved laborers. James Gray Thomas.
The site opened to the public in The south half of this building originally housed horses and carriages on the first floor with a hay loft on the floor above. The north half of the building contains the original slave quarters for the site. This two-story structure was composed of three rooms on each level. About five to fourteen enslaved people, most of which were female and children or teenagers, lived and worked on the site at any given time.
