This early English manor home was built in 1923 by Della and John A. Brown. A native of Ohio, John entered the general goods business in Emporia, Kansas, then moved to Guthrie in 1908 to start a new store. There he met and married Della Dunkin. In 1915 Brown and his cousin, Anson Rorabaugh, moved to Oklahoma City and purchased the pioneer firm of Brock Dry Goods. Renamed the Rorabaugh-Brown Company, it was the beginning of John A. Brown's Department Stores. By the 1970s, under Mrs. Brown's corporate direction, the firm operated stores downtown, in Capitol Hill, and in all major shopping malls in Oklahoma City.

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In 1919, just as the Browns were beginning this retail empire, they bought the lots at 301 NW 18th for $6,000. Four years later, wanting to duplicate a friend’s home they fell in love with in Holmby Hills, California, they hired contractor F.M. Ray and took out a building permit for $20,000. The two-story brick home was a variation on the English manor style, with a steeply pitched roof, irregular arrangement of the facade, and a porte-cochere with a sleeping room above. The home was exactly like the home in California. Everything was the same, from the above-door plaque of St. George the dragon slayer, to the curved walls, to the spiral staircase, to the light fixtures!

In 1930 the Browns sold the house to another well known couple, Emily and Joseph Beard. Joseph started his career as a manager for Dierks Lumber Company, then transferred to Duncan in 1921 just before oil was discovered in the area. Two years later he caught oil fever, built his own rig, and became a contract driller. Eventually he bought a few leases and discovered oil. By the late 1970s Beard Oil Company had145 employees, 1.8 million acres of leases, and annual revenues exceeding $20million. The house remained in the Beard family for 60 years. Emily and Joseph’s son, William “Bill” took over the family home with his wife, Marion, where they raised their children, Rebecca, Joseph, and John.

In 1990, Renate and Charles “Chuck” Wiggin bought the home. Chuck is a Boston native and Renate was from Hamburg, Germany. The Wiggins restored, refurbished, and relandscaped the property. Among their additions was the rebuilding of the low brick wall on the east side of the house. The wall incorporates two gargoyles that had once snarled beneath the eaves of the Mercantile Building, which was demolished in February 1976. The home has been featured on the Historic Home Tour many times during the years including in 1968, 1999 and 2018.