Features include built-in wood cubbies in the hallway for storing coats and belongings, toddler-sized bench seats around the periphery of the main meeting room, and windows placed at a low height so that children can look out.

In July 1936, Dr. Stanley King, President of Amherst College, was presented a petition advocating for a permanent campus building to serve as a preschool.

Other buildings designed by McKim, Mead and White include Penn Station, the Boston Public Library and the Rhode Island Statehouse.

James Turner died in 1940, at which time his brother William and sister Isabel gave $10,000 each as an endowment for work carried on at the Little Red Schoolhouse.

The preschool administration was instructed to terminate its program by June 2012,[5] but in response to vigorous public appeal, Amherst College granted the school a one-year reprieve.