Unpublished papers on file at the Yale University Library, stylistic traits and other historical evidence suggest the house was the work of Henry Austin, although there is no definite proof.

The building itself is a square two-story three-bay structure of common-bond brick two courses thick on a foundation of granite ashlar with brownstone facing.

It opens into a central hallway with carpeting over its interwoven oak and maple parquet floor and dropped ceilings with modern lighting.

Its design, referred to as "Grecian" in contemporary catalogs, has a complex-curved shelf supported by consoles over an arched firebox opening with a keyblock carved into the shape of a scallop shell.

[2] Greene Kendrick, an early Waterbury brassmaker who later served in the state legislature, built the house in 1866 for his son John.

At that time it was one of many grand houses on Waterbury Green, the two-acre (8,000 m2) remnant of the original town common that was by then the center of a growing industrial city.

John was unable to replicate his father's success in business and so turned to the law, where he rose to serve as judge and eventually mayor of Waterbury.

He lived well; upon his death in 1877 the estate lists rugs and mirrors valued at half the average annual salary of a worker in the city's factories.

Following their Italian Renaissance models, decoration tended toward very free applications of classical touches, and the Kendrick House's portico is no exception.

Several of the additional details—the cast iron balcony balustrades, brownstone trim and verticality created by the emphasis on the central bay—are typical of Henry Austin.

Sketches found among Austin's papers after he died, now kept at the Yale University Library, show a very similar house with the same chimney and belvedere placement, but without the brackets and central pediment.