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The land for this plantation was part of the Lafayette Grant and was purchased by Hardy Bryan Croom, eldest son of a wealthy North Carolina planter, in 1834. After construction of the house began the entire Croom family perished off Cape Hatteras in 1837 when the steamship "Home", in which they were traveling to Florida, was destroyed. The house remained unfinished while relatives of Hardy and his wife Frances fought what became a landmark case all the way to the Supreme Court. It was decided that in all cases where an entire family is destroyed, that the last member of the family assumed alive would inherit, and his heirs would receive the estate. It was assumed that Hardy Croom would have survived the longest and his brother Bryan inherited the majority of the estate including Goodwood, which he finished about 1840.

The house was sold in 1857 to Arvah Hopkins, and the family lived there until the middle 1880s. In 1885 the heirs of Hopkins sold the estate to Dr. William Arrowsmith, surgeon-general to the Italian Garibaldi, who brought with him some of the paintings and furnishings still in the house. In 1911 Mrs. Arrowsmith sold Goodwood to Mrs. Fanny Tiers who remodeled the house to a Mount Vernon design and replaced the wrought iron with Georgian columns. Mrs. Tiers then sold the residence to Senator William C. Hodges in 1925. It later became the home for Thomas M. Hood, was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on June 30, 1972 and turned into a house museum after the 1990 death of Mr. Hood. Goodwood (also known as Old Croom Mansion), designed by architect George Anderson, is constructed on massive but simple lines, built in Georgian style, and of square design. Numerous outbuildings surround the principal structure at Goodwood. Among these are included seven guest cottages, frame structure carriage house and a water tower approximately 65 feet high. The two-story house includes a basement and attic. The exterior is constructed of brick covered with cement stucco to simulate stonework. Exterior walls are two feet thick, and in some cases, three feet thick. The facade consists of a veranda which extends across the front and columns which rise one story. The entrance is flanked by three columns on each side. A centrally located pavilion with double doors and half-moon transom at the second level terminates in a classic pediment and fan light. A modillioned cornice encircles the house below the roof line, and is repeated inside the pediment. The building has a hip roof with an octagonal cupola on top.