The Brothers' House, called Bethania, was built on this site in the spring of 1746, probably as a four-and-one-half-story half-timber structure measuring seventy-four feet long from east to west and thirty-four feet wide from north to south. The Chronicon, the communal society's diary, recorded that the house was so durably joined together by posts, beams, and joists that its equal could hardly be found in North America, and that all the carpenter work was finished in thirty-five days. The Brothers' Meetinghouse, or Saal, was erected in November 1746 using lumber left from the Brothers' House, and although its exact height is unknown, the Chronicon called it a stately building with a meeting hall for the community, Gothic letters, galleries, and halls for love feasts. After these buildings were completed, the Brethren moved into their new convent, called Bethany, where their different domiciles were distributed to them by lot. The Meetinghouse was razed sometime before the Civil War, and the Brothers' House was demolished around 1908. Archaeologists later found a base floor and foundation wall sixty-five feet south of the southeast corner of the Brothers' House, defining two areas each nineteen feet long and sixteen feet wide, and this structure may have housed a printing operation or another craft workshop.