 The house is believed to have been built by 1862, the first of three homes which Young constructed on the property, to accommodate a family of sixteen children.By the early 1870s, Young was renting the house to John Guthrie, a solicitor credited with naming the property "Lucerne", after the lake and town in Switzerland.A clue as to why Guthrie saw similarities is in the nature of the terrain; a steep sided watercourse would have bisected the property.