Griffin recruited a team of artisans from Japan to create and maintain the gardens surrounding his estate. They built a tea house, a bridge leading to it, and various garden structures across the property. Remnants of Griffin's fish pond and tea garden survive today, situated near the college's football field and behind the Educational Technology Services building. The gardens represent an early example of Japanese horticultural craft in the Santa Clara Valley, commissioned at a time when cultural exchange between Japan and California was still relatively uncommon.

The main house spans three levels: a ground floor with living room, dining room, study, kitchen, and pantry; a second floor with five bedrooms and an indoor bathroom; and a third-floor attic with a balcony. A brick fireplace served as the main heat source. The Carriage House, originally used for maintaining carriages and housing six horses, later served as the Los Altos Hills Fire Department station before becoming the repository for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District's historic archives. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 13, 1977.

Griffin died in 1913, twelve years after building the house. The company he helped create -- Del Monte Foods -- went on to become one of America's best-known food brands. Today, students walking between classes at Foothill College pass a shingled mansion held together by craftsmanship over a century old, surrounded by traces of gardens planted by artisans who crossed the Pacific to tend them. The house is a monument to the Valley of Heart's Delight -- the agricultural wealth that preceded and financed the technology economy that replaced it.