Here on State Circle rises Government House, the official residence of Maryland's governor since 1870. It sits on State Circle in the state capital town of Annapolis, immediately adjacent to the historic Maryland State House and the surrounding legislative buildings complex that serves the bicameral General Assembly of Maryland. This handsome residence has been the home of the governor of the "Old Line State" since it was constructed and completed in 1870.
Before this house was built, the Jennings House mansion served as the official residence from 1777 until about 1869–1870. The Jennings House later became part of the nearby United States Naval Academy campus—an Academy established in Annapolis in 1845—which purchased the mansion in 1869 for $20,000 and used it for a number of purposes for the next three decades before razing it in 1901 to make room for an expanded waterfront campus on reclaimed landfill acreage. Government House itself was designed by Baltimore architect R. Snowden Andrews (1830–1903).
Next door, the Maryland State House and its dome preside over State Circle, while the Jennings House that preceded this residence survives only in the story of the Naval Academy's waterfront.