Frederic Arthur Stanley, Lord of Preston, 16th Earl of Derby (1841-1908) was Governor General of Canada from 1888 to 1893. He came from the British Aristocratic and Political class; his father was Prime Minister of England for three terms.

Lord Stanley himself had a prestigious political career in the British Parliament and in the House of Lords; he fulfilled his responsibilities as Governor General of Canada with care and caution, distinguishing himself by his conciliatory spirit.

In Canada, he is mainly known for the Stanley Cup which he presented in 1893 to honour amateur hockey champions.

Lord Stanley had the house built nine miles from where he fished salmon on the Cascapedia River. The land originally belonged to the Duthie Family and was subsequently sold to John Robertson, then to Andrew Fairservice in 1888. The same year, Lord Stanley bought the land and had the house built by a carpenter named Reid who was the first carpenter of the Parliament House in Ottawa.

Even though the house is associated with Frederic Arthur Stanley, two other Governor Generals resided there. John Campbell Gordon, first Lord of Aberdeen and Temair, Governor General from 1893 to 1898, bought it in 1893. In their memoirs, We Twa, published in 1925, John Campbell Gordon and his spouse Lady Aberdeen describe in detail their four summers spent in New-Richmond.

The Earl of Minto, Governor General of Canada from 1898 to 1904, also spent one summer there. Other owners have followed, such as John Reyburn, Senator and Mayor of Philadelphia; then Estelle and Roméo Lanctôt of Montreal, whose daughter, Olivia Billings Terrel, living in New-York, inherited the residence in 1957 and donated it to the Canada Council for the Arts in 1962.

From 1962 onwards, the Canada Council for the Arts used the venue for seminars and gatherings for artists and scholars, but budget cuts brought an end to these activities in 1984. Even thought it wasn't in operation, the Council had entrusted the upkeep of the property to a guardian until 1996. At that time, a citizen of New-Richmond, J. Edgar LeBlanc, purchased the property to operate it as the Stanley House Inn.