[1] The Boardman House stands in a residential area northeast of downtown Wakefield, at the southeast corner of Pleasant and Salem Streets.

The building corners have slender pilasters rising to a full entablature and modillioned cornice.

It has en elaborate entrance surround, with sidelight windows, pilasters, and a corniced entablature.

[2] This large Federal style house was built in 1790 by Elias Boardman, a builder who had worked extensively in Boston.

The house's decorations were so extravagant for what was then rural South Reading it was dubbed "Boardman's Folly".