After marrying Mollie Turner, daughter of an early Trinity pioneer, after 1876, Ranald McDonald settled on his land along the Trinity River. He bought this lot in 1890 and hired John Denton Gibbs to build this Victorian house in 1891. Beneath the structure, which stands on stone piers, he kept bees, honey, buggies, and wagons. His son Alexander, the second owner of the house, built a power plant on the property to provide Trinity's first electrical system.