The studio is a 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame building, set on the densely built north side of Thomas Street, opposite the First Baptist Meetinghouse (also a National Historic Landmark).

[3] The interior is relatively simple, with an enclosed stair rising on the left side of the building to a mezzanine level, a full second floor, and the attic area.

[3] George William Whitaker, known as the "Dean of Providence Painters," shared space with Burleigh in the studio during the late 1800s.

[4] Horror writer H. P. Lovecraft made the Fleur-de-Lys building the residence of his character Henry Anthony Wilcox, a young artist and sculptor, in his famous tale "The Call of Cthulhu."

It's described as "a hideous Victorian imitation of seventeenth-century Breton architecture which flaunts its stuccoed front amidst the lovely colonial houses on the ancient hill, and under the very shadow of the finest Georgian steeple in America".

Bertrand K. Hart, then literary editor of the Providence Journal and author of a regular column, "The Sideshow", read the story in an anthology, T. Everett Harre's Beware After Dark!