The large Queen Anne Victorian is significant as one of few known residential works of a prolific New Hampshire architect, William M. Butterfield, and as the home of John Butler Smith, a principal owner of the local Contoocook Mills, who also served as governor of New Hampshire (1893–95).

It is a rambling Victorian 2+1⁄2-story wood-frame structure, clad in brick with granite trim on the ground floor, and wooden clapboards and shingles on the upper levels.

Dominant features include a circular turret with pyramidal roof at the right front corner, a large projecting gable on the left side, and a single-story porch across much of the front, supported by clustered columns.

[2] This house began as a two-story Italianate structure built in 1866, which was extended with a mansard roof in 1885.

John Butler Smith House (Hillsborough, New Hampshire) at Wikimedia Commons