The house is a 1-1/2 story wood frame building constructed in 1895.  The main rooms of the eight-room structure were built with sixteen-foot ceilings and, at one time, featured linen covered cotton padding layered between the walls and the detailed wallpaper.  Cherry wood mantels and facings for the two ornate fireplaces were shipped from Chattanooga, TN.  Imported walnut also went into the ornamental woodwork on the encircling front porch.  Ceramic tiles with coordinated color schemes finished out the fireplaces in both rooms.

The main center section of the house was four rooms in a south-to-north row:  the sun-lit parlor (music room), the sitting room (library), the state dining room and the kitchen. Each room featured long sliding partitions separating the parlor, library and dining room and could be opened for a large space to accommodate a dance floor. A two-room wing flanked each side, with an open breezeway separating the west wing (Governor Johnston's bedroom) from the sitting room. Construction of the house was changed slightly shortly after the family took occupancy in 1898. An addition was also added to the north side of the east wing in order to provide an office for Governor Johnston and an extra bedroom.  The bedroom space was later converted to a bathroom and the adjoining office used as a dressing room.  Probably at this time, a children's bedroom was added to the north side of the west bedroom, later converted to a shower and dressing room.  Shortly before statehood (1904-1907)), the breezeway was enclosed and a stairway installed from it to the attic, where a bedroom and bathroom were added.  The bathroom, including a tin tub with a wood rim, is believed to have been the first in a private home in the Chickasaw Nation.  Lighting was originally provided by hanging and standing coal lamps, later converted to carbide lights, and eventually to electricity.

Other structures on the property included a carriage house, chicken houses, outdoor privy, guest house, smoke house, a swing with an elaborate rose trellis, cistern, barn, playhouse, orchard vineyards, covered storm cellar and small log well house.  There was also a windmill, said to have furnished water to the territory's first indoor toilet with flush commode.