It was located opposite John Plankinton's own house on Grand Avenue in an upscale residential area of the western part of the city, near other mansions.

Despite being listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, the house was demolished on October 11, 1980, to make way for student facilities for Marquette University.

[4] Local historians H. Russell Zimmermann and Mary Ellen Young attribute the house as being designed by Edward Townsend Mix.

According to the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) done in 1980 by the United States Department of the Interior, the house was constructed between 1886, when ownership was transferred to Elizabeth, and 1888, when it appears in Rascher's Fire Insurance Atlas of City of Milwaukee.

[5] Zimmerman notes that an inscription dated 1887 was discovered on a piece of roofing slate in 1979, and suggests that the house was likely finished in that year;[4] Reports of the costs of construction vary from $100,000[6] to $150,000[7] (equivalent to $3 to $4.5 million in 2023).

The front of the house had a three-story conical turret, a stone porch, a porte-cochere, and a sunroom on the west side.

It was trimmed with carved buff ashlar sandstone, granite columns, terracotta tiles, and metal work.

According to Zimmermann, the Plankinton mansion was exceptional in that "almost the entire project is designed and drawn by an architect [which] shows in the way all of the components of a given room are compatibly related to the whole.

"[4] The amount of money spent was reflected in the craftsmanship, which he illustrates with a first-floor fireplace: The carving is crisp and sharp with frequent undercutting, and the handling of foliage is life-like.

The mantel slab is supported by four bulbous columns made like inverted pinecones with modified composite capitals.

[4] The HABS report notes that a skylight was removed in 1976 and sold, but that it was 16 by 6 feet (4.9 by 1.8 m) in size and had a mosaic design of 25,000 parts of zinc-framed stained glass pieces lined with copper.

[5] Elizabeth was abandoned by her fiancé, sculptor Richard Hamilton Park, when he married a dancer from Minneapolis on September 18, 1887.

And those who personally dislike the exterior design should be reminded that, by every standard required in the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, this specimen is a deserving recipient of that high honor.

The number of good Victorian buildings in Milwaukee has been so reduced that we can no longer afford to look the other way when one of National Register status is on trial.

[5] Marquette had it demolished on October 11, 1980, approximately two months after the HABS survey report was issued,[18] and despite its 1976 inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.