Henry Webber, its builder, was a shoe merchant who grew wealthy from his mining investments during Aspen's original growth during the Colorado Silver Boom.

At one time it was owned by Walter Paepcke, the Chicago businessman who led Aspen's mid-20th-century renaissance as a ski resort town.

[5] While Paepcke owned the house, he invited Albert Schweitzer to Aspen to give the keynote speech at a festival he organized to commemorate Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's bicentennial.

The lot occupies the entire southern half of the block below the alley midway between it and West Hallam Street to the north.

A long rectangular section projects to the west from the rear addition, putting the house on the north and east of its swimming pool.

[1] The south (front) facade has two projecting polygonal bays with double-hung one-over-one sash windows, flanking the main entrance, double wooden doors reached by low, wide semicircular brick steps.

Three pedimented dormer windows with double-hung one-over-one sash pierce the steep face of the mansard roof on the upper story; the central one is additionally set in a projecting trapezoid.

[1] Wide semicircular brick steps rise to the main entrance, consisting of paneled double doors set with etched glass windows.

It is located on the west, facing North Fourth Street at the alley, with several small brick additions on that side.

[1] At that time it was beginning to transform from a small collection of log cabins into a more permanent settlement due to the many lodes of silver being mined from the surrounding mountains.

Webber, who also built downtown Aspen's Elks Building, used the Second Empire mode for his house, not a common choice at the time in the city.

[4] Later Webber served a term as mayor of Aspen, elected despite revelations that he had abandoned a wife and family prior to marrying Harriet.

Many buildings and houses from the boom years were abandoned and succumbed to fire and/or the effects of severe winters at high elevation in the Rocky Mountains.

As one aspect of this, in 1949 Walter Paepcke, working with University of Chicago chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins, organized a conference and festival in Aspen to commemorate the bicentennial of German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

They invited German humanist Albert Schweitzer to come from his missionary and medical work in West Africa to give the festival's keynote address; it would be his only visit to the United States during the 90 years of his life.