Originally it was built on land that had been transferred to a local insurance company by developers of the surrounding affluent Nook Farm[3] neighborhood.

The house of Uncle Tom's Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe, also listed on the Register, is a similar distance to the north along the east side of Forest.

Around the southeast corner is a porch sheltered by a shed roof with gabled portico at the main entrance; a small one-story shed-roofed ell is at the center of the rear.

A curved walkway with shrubs on the south, complemented by a driveway on the north, lead across the front yard to the sidewalk and street.

It has an arched window surrounded by classical detailing, a wide frieze with garlands and swag on top and brackets on the bottom.

[7] In the 1880s, the former Nook Farm area was one of Hartford's most desirable new neighborhoods, with a number of nationally prominent writers living within blocks of each other.

Charles Dudley Warner, his coauthor on The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, a satirical novel which lent its name to the era, lived nearby.

John Hooker, developer of the neighborhood, and his suffragist wife, Isabella, lived in their house that stands to the southeast on Hawthorne Street.

Forest Street's homes, unlike those elsewhere in the Asylum Hill neighborhood which were developed later as smaller, middle-income properties, were large and spacious.

[2][8] That year John Hooker and his partner, Francis Gillette, encountered difficulty in paying off the mortgage on the Nook Farm properties.

Although the lot was small compared to the other Nook Farm properties, Williston was as wealthy as his neighbors, and the house he built reflects emerging tastes.

[1] In 1963, all 11 original Nook Farm houses across the street, including Warner's, were condemned and demolished for the construction of Hartford Public High School.