Like its neighboring houses, it too was built on a stone foundation. Unlike any other brick dwelling in the village, however, the house was originally designed in a center-hall plan.
Simple chair rail and cornice trim adorn the interiors in each first-floor room. A projected chimney breast with panelled sides trimmed with quarter-round molding are featured in the parlor. Crosetted corners embellish bot hthe over-mantel and the fireplace surround, under the mantel shelf.
Heavy cornice trim enriches the panelled end wall of the dining room. Flanking each side of the closed fireplace are eighteenth century cupboards.
Though the deeds for this property are ambigious, documentation indicates that this was the dwelling house of George Hillis, Sr., cordwainer in Christiana. According to Hillis' will, dated December 31, 1770, his dwelling house and the property contigious to the Christiana Inn were bequeathed to his old friend, Ann Ravey, with the understanding that upon her death it would be passed to his daughter, Elizabeth Adams. The wharfs and stores are Christiana Bridge were occupied by his son-in-law, George Adams, a shallopman, were also bequeathed to Elizabeth. In 1775, when George Adams died, these same wharves and stores were bequeathed to his son Levi, who, in 1787, went into partnership with Solomon Maxwell as commission merchants. Eventually, both the Mansion House and the inn became the property of John Hall, the village's only known tobacconist.
The seven lots between the Hillis Mansion and the Christiana Inn were all part of George Hillis Sr.'s village property. By the end of the nineteenth-century, at least two blacksmith shops, one wheelwright shop, two small frame dwellings and one brick house had been erected on them. Situated on this property todayy is a nineteenth century brick residence, three small twentieth-century asbestos shingled houses, and two, two-story late eighteenth or early nineteenth-century dwellings. Each of these early residences, like others in the town, have interior end chimenys, box cornices with molded trim, and square attic windows.
Directly across from the Hillis Mansion are a number of late eighteenth and early nineteenth frame dwellings, intermingled with a few modern houses. The oldest dwellings, homogeneous in their proportions and designs, are small, two-story frame dwellings with stone foundations, box cornices, and small, square attic windows.
Sounrce: Christiana Historic District nomination, National Register of Historic Places, 1974.