Built in 1883–84, it is a prominent example of Ruskinian Gothic architecture, designed by the noted firm of Peabody and Stearns.

[1] The Bayley House stands in a residential area roughly midway between the villages of Newtonville and Newton Corner, on the south side of Fairmont Avenue, a short way west of its junction with Centre Street.

It has irregular and asymmetric massing typical of the Queen Anne period, including a tower with steeply pitched pyramidal roof at one corner.

A single-story porch extends around parts of the building, with balustrades; a porte-cochere provides access to the main entrance via a semicircular drive.

[2] The house was commissioned by James C. Bayley, a Boston shoe merchant who died within months after ground was broken in late 1883.

The house was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Edgar P. Van Etten (President, Boston and Albany Railroad) in 1903.

(Arnold, a coal dealer, was born in Dorchester in 1906 and married Helen F. Priest in Keene, New Hampshire on June 10, 1933.)

The carriage house still shows on the southwest corner of the lot, that piece of land has not yet been subdivided.