[1] Redwood is set near the southeastern end of Barberry Lane, south of the main village of Bar Harbor, on a point north of Cromwell Cove that overlooks Frenchman Bay.

The western projection is gabled-roofed, with a second-floor chamber set above a porte-cochere which shelters the main entrance.

To its right a tall two-story window rises to a small gabled peak, with an elaborately-decorated brick Queen Anne style chimney to its right.

[2] Bar Harbor began to develop a reputation as a summer resort area in the 1860s, with its early tourist trade served by local residents boarding visitors in their houses, and by hotels that were built to meet the demand.

This was the first (of many) residential commission Emerson executed in the Bar Harbor area, and was his first full expression of the Shingle style,[2] whose oldest known example is the 1875 William Watts Sherman House in Newport, Rhode Island, designed by H. H. Richardson.