Located in the former port village of Williston on the Choptank River, Memory Lane was built by shipping magnate Colonel John Arthur Willis as a wedding present for his daughter. Mary Virginia Willis married B. Gootee Stevens, who became president of the Denton National Bank. Willis acquired the port, known as Potters Landing, in 1847 and made his fortune from moving grain and other agricultural products on steamboats and sailing ships.
The double-pile central-hall house has fashionable Italianate decorative detail with a bracketed wraparound porch on chamfered posts, scrolled eave brackets, and an eight-sided cupola topped by a finial. In exterior detail and plan, the house resembles Design XXVII “A Small Country House for the Southern States” in A. J. Downing’s influential The Architecture of Country Houses, first published in 1850. Downing describes this design as “a simple, rational, convenient, and economical dwelling for the southern part of the Union” and highlights the benefits of large porches and overhanging eaves in a warm climate.