 The present house's earliest period of construction dates to about 1723, when the first floor was built, and it was documented as being occupied by Tomás González y Hernández, an artilleryman at the Castillo de San Marcos, and his family.The design of this house is one that was adopted by Spanish colonial settlers to deal with local living conditions and available building materials.It was built of readily available coquina limestone, with its main thick walls oriented east–west, and has an open covered loggia on the east side.