Richard Bonifield was a leading Zanesville physician, establishing his practice in the city in 1867. By the late 1880s, he had become sufficiently prosperous to build a house in an undeveloped area of the city. When the house was finished, it was among the first buildings along its section of Sunkel Boulevard: the land was only platted in 1913, and most development in the area occurred during the late 1910s and the 1920s.
