One of Lexington's most significant historic properties, the Reid-White-Philbin House presents a rare stewardship opportunity on 1+ acres in the heart of town. This large, solid brick and stone home offers grand entertaining rooms, family-scaled spaces, and expansion potential in the walkup attic and walkout basement. 11 working fireplaces, wide plank floors, and more! Property currently earns income from two apartments (1 attached, 1 detached) Handcrafted woodwork throughout the house includes mantelpieces, staircases, baseboards and chair rails, door and window surrounds, and other moldings. Fireplaces have been relined; most have marble hearths and surrounds. Original plaster on lath walls and ceilings are in good condition, as are the wide plank wood floors found in most rooms. As is typical of many homes dating from the early 1800s, most bedrooms do not have built-in closets. Several bedrooms are quite substantial in size and could readily accommodate alterations for bathrooms and closets; some bedrooms are set up as home offices, and one is used as the family library.

The home's walkup attic has a center hall flanked by a single room on each end, with windows providing views to the northeast and southwest. The large basement (under the 1821 portion of the house) has both interior and exterior access.

The main portion of the home was begun in 1821 by Samuel McDowell Reid, a longtime trustee of Washington College and the man often credited with successfully recruiting Robert E Lee to lead the college in the post-Civil War period. Lee's first night in Lexington was spent in the home.

The oldest part of the home is the rear ell, a formerly freestanding stone house dating from the colonial period (pre-1776). One of the oldest buildings in Lexington, it currently serves as 2-bedroom, 1-1/2 bath accessory apartment.

Reid began construction on the main, Federal-style house in 1821. Though similar in some respects to other fine brick houses built regionally during the 1820s, the carved stone Ionic-order portico columns are unique. The interior has a sophisticated, atypical floor plan. Four rooms, including a grand stairhall, radiate off of the entry hall, which has a distinctive barrel vaulted ceiling. The formal living and dining rooms are individually quite large; when the pocket doors separating them are open the entertaining space is nearly 20' by 40' in size, with 12' high ceilings. In 1847 Reid expanded the home with a two-story Greek Revival-style addition that provides a second stairhall, expansive double-tier porches with Chinese Chippendale railings, and a large room on each level. Reid's daughter Mary Louise married James Jones White, a professor of Greek at Washington College, in 1858; they also resided in the home. Upon Reid's death in 1869, Robert E Lee served as one of his pallbearers. The Whites added the conservatory wing in the last quarter of the century, but otherwise made few changes to the home, and lived there until they died (he in 1894, she in 1901).

In the 1910s, a portion of the property fronting on Lee Avenue and Nelson Street was sold to the federal government to be the site of a new U.S. Post Office. The post office, a refined Classical Revival edifice, still occupies that property. The White family retained ownership of the home until 1959, when it was sold to the Fraternity Housing Corporation. From 1959-1975 it served as the home of Washington & Lee's chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order. During that period the house was expanded and renovated. In 1975 the property was acquired by the Philbin family, who restored the home to its pre-fraternity appearance and returned it to use as a family residence.

A 19th-century brick outbuilding adjacent to the house has been rehabilitated for use as a studio apartment. The outbuilding, main house, and accessory apartment in the stone house are the three residential units currently allowed on the property (nonconforming use, but grandfathered in).