[3] The building's commission reportedly caused the board to question its decision, leading them to hire David Riebel as the first school architect.

[3] The building was designed by prolific Columbus-area architect Frank Packard, built shortly before his partnership with Joseph W. Yost.

[10][2] The exterior predominantly has walls of red brick, a hipped slate roof with a low pitch, and carved stone details throughout.

The exterior wall spaces are only lightly taken up by doors and windows; towers, turrets, and arches typical of the Richardsonian style are abundant.

The roof is intersected by projecting gable-roofed wall dormers, each of which has triple rectangular windows and heavy stone lintels and sills on the first and second floors.

Round brick turrets flank these windows on the second floor, with carved stone corbels at the base and spherical knobs at the top.

The top floor of the tower, a belfry, has round-arched louvered openings, separated by thin colonnettes and flanked by four round conical-roofed turrets.