Another architect working in the same building was William Ralph Emerson, whose historicist aesthetic in the Queen Anne Style had a profound effect on Stevens.

Together they wrote the book Examples of American Domestic Architecture (1889), an early study of the Shingle Style.

[5] Houses designed by Stevens can be found along the Maine coast, as well as in Portland (particularly the West End) and its suburbs.

In one of his rare commissions outside of Maine, he created a master plan for and designed a chapel and at least six barracks buildings at the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (Southern Branch) in Hampton, Virginia.

His oil painting Delano Park, Cape Elizabeth (1904) is in the collection of Blaine House, the Maine governor's official residence.

He lent Afternoon Fog by Winslow Homer to the L. D. M. Sweat Memorial Galleries, now part of the Portland Museum of Art.

In recognition of his architectural contributions on the Portland peninsula, the city declared October 8, 2009, to be John Calvin Stevens Day.