The quaint house, built on a hill that slopes down to Reedy Creek, has two additions to the original house, built at later dates. The front door opens into the main wing, which was built half in plastered brick and half in native hand-hewn timbers, mortised, tenoned and pegged together. The first floor housed a magnificently proportioned master bedroom in days gone by, which was later converted into two smaller bedrooms. These bedrooms retain their original wide board, heart-pine floors. An enclosed staircase to the upper floor lets into a large hall and another huge room. This room was the parlor of earlier days and was later converted into a lovely combination den and bedroom. The basement is below this section of the house. It was constructed of native stone walls up to ground level, then two feet of hand-kilned brick above.

The middle section of the house, one built at a later date than the main section, has a shingled dormer roof, and consists of a large dining room and a kitchen. Its walls separating it from the other two sections of the house are firewalls, with bricks laid between the studs to form brick walls to slow the spreading of any fire started in the kitchen. These two rooms have exposed beams and share an eleven-and-a half-foot wide chimney, one of the largest on record.

The children of Dr. Isaac Love and his South Carolinian wife, Martha Chappell, were left in the care of their uncle, Samuel Love, after the death of their parents. Samuel placed Henry in the home of a Baptist minister, Reverend James Shelburn, and there he was educated.

He became a successful carpenter, and in 1814 Rev James Shelburn, the man who actually raised Henry, married the couple. Henry eventually acquired a rather large estate (about 2,000 acres), with two gristmills, and 200 slaves in his possession. One of these mills known as "Love's Mill" was on the Meherrin River and used by the public. The other, on Reedy Creek, was used privately on his own farm.

Henry and Mary reared their nine children at "Old Mansion House". It has been stated by some that Mary was not quite 13 when she married Henry, however, in the Lunenburg County Federal Census of 1850, she was 42 years old. This would place her birth closer to 1808 than 1802, and therefore place her marriage age at eighteen or nineteen, rather than thirteen. Henry and Mary had: James Chappell, Thomas Jeffreys, Ann Elizabeth, William Henry, Mary Jane, Martha Camilla, Allen Hicks, Jennings Motley and David Robert.

I. James Chappell Love, Captain Jimmy as he was called, was a teacher in Lunenburg County. He married Mary Elizabeth Davis, daughter of William and Lucy Davis, of Prince Edward County, Virginia. They lived and are buried in a private cemetery at "Old Pleasant Grove," Lunenburg County, Virginia, another lovely antebellum home not farm from his father's estate. There they raised seven of their eight children: Stephen Henry, who married Lucy Dickenson; Ellen Brown, who married Washington Winn; Mary Elizabeth, who married her cousin, Orlando Hardy; William Nicholas, who married Dorcas Coleman; Laura Estelle, who married Alexander Young Hurt; James Chappell, Jr., who married a Kincaid from West Virginia; Clara Hoover, who died in infancy; and Ada Miller, who married Charles Faris.

2. Thomas Jeffreys Love married Lucy Frances Boswell and lived in Lunenburg.

3. Anne Elizabeth Love married Jordan Robert Hardy, son of Charles and Sarah Hardy, of Lunenburg County, Virginia. They lived in Lunenburg where they raised their four children: Luther Chappell, who married Mary E Hurt; Joseph Thomas, who married a Johnson; Orlando Love Hardy, who married his cousin, Mary Elizabeth Love; and Henry Hix, who married Laura Russell.

4. William Henry Love married three times: Jane whose surname is unknown by this writer, by whom he had three children; Mary Elizabeth Maddox, who was his first love; and Harriet Rowlett. In what order he married them is also unknown by this writer. However, it is known that he married Harriet on, or about, May 8, 1846, with Jordan Hardy serving as surety on this marriage bond.

5. Mary Jane Love married Dr. Joseph Boswell, Jr., son of Joseph and Susanna Boswell, of "Boswell Hill," Mecklenburg County, Virginia.

6. Martha Camilla Love married Louis Mumford Gee, who purchased "Old Mansion House" after the death of Martha's father in 1871. He later gave it to his youngest son, Louis Armistead Gee, and his grandson, Louis Turner Gee, later acquired the property from him.

7. Allen Hicks Love was Sheriff of Lunenburg County. He never married.

8. Jennings Motley Love married Martha Jane Harris. Their son, Chappell May Love married Ida Bridgforth Seay.