During the colonial period, the Eastern Shore builders gave architectural quality and fine detailing not only to their larger works but to smaller ones as well. An excellent illustration of this phenomenon is the tiny Somers House, which at the time of listing in the registers stood abandoned and deteriorating in a field on Northampton County’s Occohannock Neck. The glazed-header Flemish-bond brickwork, careful proportions, and a refined interior paneled wall gave this otherwise simple house all the dignity of a grand colonial mansion. The Somers House dated after 1727, the year in which Thomas Smith gave the land to his grandson Leaven Smith, for whom the house was built. The Somers family owned it into the late 19th century.

The Somers House slowly crumbled and eventually was dismantled, probably in the 1990s.