It was built in 1922-24 as a teaching studio for New York Metropolitan Opera diva Marcella Sembrich (1858-1935).

The studio building is a one-story, rectangular, stucco walled wood-frame building with a hipped roof and glassed in porches in the Spanish Revival style.

Additional contributing features on the property are a bathhouse, curator's cottage, a lookout, stone retaining walls along the shoreline, stone walls, three piers flanking the entrance, wrought iron fencing and entrance gate, and landscape features.

The property was converted to a museum shortly after the death of Marcella Sembrich in 1935.

[2] The Sembrich hosts summer concerts, lectures, films and performances.