 Denham may have acted as his own architect, or he may have employed Hugh May, who certainly became involved in the construction after the house was sold in an incomplete state in 1667 to Richard Boyle, the first Earl of Burlington, from whom it derives its name.Burlington had the house completed, which was the largest structure on his land, the Burlington Estate.In 1704, the house was passed on to ten-year-old Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington, who was to become the principal patron of the Palladian movement in England, and an architect in his own right.