It is a three-by-five-bay two-story yellow building with a front porch and balustraded balcony on either end and several tall chimneys emerging from the roof.

The window muntins have a beaded knife blade profile and the plaster ceiling cornices and medallions also have finely carved ornamentation.

[1] A circular driveway leads up to the house, set back a mere 40 feet (12 m) from the street to allow for outbuildings and the property's garden.

Three years later the deed was formally transferred to the younger man, who had already distinguished himself in New Bedford's civic life by helping to found banks and schools,[7] upon the execution of his father's estate.

He hired a young English immigrant named Richard Upjohn to design a house on the plot, insisting it be more modest and restrained than its neighbors,[1] even though he was the third-wealthiest man in the city after his late father and brother-in-law.

In that year, Edward Coffin Jones, a Nantucket native who had moved to New Bedford and become a successful ship owner, bought the house for $17,000.

[5] One of his daughters, Amelia Hickling Jones, lived there for the next 85 years, becoming a major civic benefactor as the city transitioned from whaling to textiles as the mainstay of its economy.

[9] Several educational programs are available, using the house and gardens to teach students in grades 4-6 about botany, beekeeping and whaling, with teacher support material available online.