Charles McLaran came to Columbus from Baltimore in the 1840s and became a planter and banker. The residence that Lull built for him became the immediate subject of praise by the local newspaper, the Southern Standard, which described it in 1852 as the “crowning architectural structure among the many stately edifices [in town]” and pronounced it with some hyperbole “probably superior to anything of the kind to be found in the Southern States.” It is an enlarged version of Lull’s own residence, Camellia Place (1847; PR22). As the name suggests, Riverview stands on a bluff above the Tombigbee River and has both land and water fronts, each with a portico of square, giant-order, paneled columns supporting deep and proper entablatures. The red brick house’s center-hall plan includes first-floor public and private dining rooms separated by a wide, paneled door capable of being raised into the hollow wall of the floor above to produce a huge banqueting hall. Guests finished with their meal in these grand circumstances could ascend to an equally grand second-floor ballroom. The elaborate interiors include a staircase rising all the way to the belvedere. An internally remodeled, five-bay brick kitchen and slave quarters (c. 1850) stands to the south.