Banana Manor in the town was complemented by a summer home on Smith’s Island built about 1770 by Dr George Forbes. As a physician, Forbes was mindful of the diseases which spread quickly in towns, so he probably built Forbes House for his family as a refuge from epidemics. The house was more typically Georgian than his older residence in town. The large L-shaped building has an asymmetrical northern facade bolstered by decorative buttresses. A chimney dominates the end of the kitchen wing to the south. A cluster of outbuildings appears on early 19th century maps of the island, most of which have since vanished. After his death in 1778 his widow Mary lived at the farm for another 15 years. Her son, Dr Francis Forbes, joined her there in 1787. Francis eventually acquired the whole of Smith’s Island and left it to his three children, dividing the island into thirds after he died in 1814. The house, which had fallen into disrepair, went to his son Francis.

Francis Forbes Jr was destined for bigger and better things than a country home on Smith’s Island. A gifted lawyer, he became attorney general of Bermuda in 1810. He left for Newfoundland in 1818 to take up the post of chief justice of that colony and later occupied the same position in New South Wales, Australia. He was knighted in 1837 and died in 1841. His heirs sold the house and middle section of Smith’s Island to John Outerbridge in 1870.

In 1882 Claude William McCallan, who had married into the Outerbridge family, moved there from St George’s and launched an experimental farm on the island while renovating and expanding the old house. McCallan experimented with a wide array of new crops such as peas, beans, grapes and various citrus trees on the western half of the island, while Robert Harley James grew Easter lilies on the eastern half. McCallan’s herd of Jersey cows thrived and provided milk to St George’s and StDavid’s households. Spending time on his kinsman’s farm, future director of agriculture Ernest A McCallan no doubt collected material for his book, Life on Old St David’s, which records old local traditions, activities and lore in the years before the Second World War.

After passing through a number of hands and for several decades serving as the base for an extensive hydroponics farming venture, Forbes House and two adjoining lots were purchased by Eric and Rita Rothwell. Their son, Garth Rothwell, renovated it and converted a nearby outbuilding, the Forbes family’s former slave quarters, into an office. The house retains a long tradition of rural grandeur and commands a fine view of St George’s and its harbour.