The three-story dwelling was built in the 1850s as a second home of Willard Bradley and Matilda Desnoyer Bunnell, the first permanent residents of Winona County, who settled there in 1849. Willard Bunnell traded with the Indians and was also a land speculator and town site planner. He named the town of Homer after his birthplace in New York state. An earlier log house, which stood about 200 feet north of the present site, was destroyed by fire in 1901. It was occupied for many years by Willard’s brother, Lafayette, the man who named Yosemite Valley in California. The present house, never painted, was built of lumber shipped by steamboat from Iowa.