In November 1998, the New York State Board of Regents voted to approve CSHL's Ph.D. granting school. As supplemental, subsidized, off-site housing for first-year Watson School students, the Laboratory purchased the 1810 building on land facing the inner harbor along Route 25A.

Generations of the illustrious CSH Jones family and their descendants had lived there, including one former CSHL Trustee, Townsend J. Knight. A substantial restoration was required.