Built c. 1730, the John Coddington House stands on its original site. It is a two-story building with two interior chimneys and a gambrel roof. The house was enlarged and altered in the mid-eighteenth century. After being purchased by the Newport Restoration Foundation (NRF) in 1971, it was restored in 1973-74 to reflect those later changes rather than restore the original structure as it was in 1730.

The house has several interesting features of which the roof and the doorway are perhaps the most noteworthy. Rather than the steep roofline typically found in eighteenth-century Newport, the gambrel roof is quite broad. The doorway was copied by NRF from the shell-hooded doorway of the Ayrault House at the Newport Historical Society. This decision was based on records indicating that in 1737 John Stevens made a doorway for Coddington using the Ayrault House doorway as a model.

The Coddington House underwent several early changes. The 1730 building was smaller and probably had a center chimney. The shell doorway was likely a part of a 1737 enlargement. The house received significant changes to the interior, as well as the addition of a window bay on the west end, during the Greek revival period (1820 to 1850). The first-floor rooms had been redone rather elegantly in the Greek style and this was maintained during the restoration. The second and third floors still reflect eighteenth-century details.

About 1900, the house was raised to make way for commercial space at ground level. This was a common practice in Newport and many eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century buildings are still like this today. The commercial space created when the house was first raised was used for a grocery store. Its last use before being lowered by NRF was for a furniture store. The lowering process, however, was somewhat complex. The house was raised slightly and blocked while the commercial walls were demolished. The house was then lowered and rolled back into the yard while a cellar hole was dug and concrete walls poured. Finally, the house was rolled forward over the new cellar to its original street-level position.