It was built for Sylvanus Blanchard, a ship's captain and shipyard owner.

It is a two-story wood-frame structure, its main block capped by a hip roof with cupola, and a series of ells that extended to a carriage house at the rear of the property, which was torn down around 2018.

The roof has deep eaves studded with pairs of ornately carved brackets, and the eight-sided cupola has round-arch windows, and single brackets under its eight-sided roof.

The main facade faces east, with an ornately decorated single-story hip-roofed porch across its width.

[2] The house was designed by Portland architect Charles A. Alexander, and was built in 1855 for Captain Sylvanus Blanchard (1778–1858), a ship's captain and boatbuilder who was one of Yarmouth's leading citizens of the day.