Ivydene in Little Switzerland was designed in 1893-94 by the Arts and Crafts architect M. H. Baillie Scott, who had recently settled on the Isle of Man after his marriage in 1889. The house was commissioned by Richard Maltby Broadbent, and perspective views and plans of the design were published in the architectural press, in The Building News, on 9 March 1894. It stands as one of Baillie Scott's earliest independent commissions on the island, from the period before he went on to international recognition, including work for the Grand Duke of Hesse at Darmstadt.