Built about 1886, the original two-room adobe building was built over the western edge of the west wing of the destroyed McSween house and may have been built, in part, with adobes salvaged from the ruins of the McSween house. By October 1888, these two rooms housed Madison L. and Orella Gorton’s Butcher Shop; they purchased the property from James J. Dolan in September 1888 but sold the property to William Rosenthal & Company in March 1892 and moved to Downey, California. Over the next twenty years, a series of attorneys, including George Barber, Susan McSween’s second husband, rented or owned the property and used it primarily as office space. A third adobe room was added to the east side of the building in the 1890s, and a wood-frame two-room addition was added on the west side about 1900. Beginning in 1908, Isidro Fresquez acquired an interest in the property. He consolidated his interest into full ownership by 1912, and he or members of his family lived in this house until 1961, when it was conveyed to the State of New Mexico.