The building, the design of which is unlike any other on the campus or in the city, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

[1] Usen Castle is located atop Boston Rock, one of the highest points on the Brandeis campus.

Its exterior, apparently inspired by Lismore Castle in Ireland, features a wide variety of turrets, towers, crenellations, and pinnacles.

The interior retains Gothic features, giving the current student residential users a distinctive feel not found in other residences on the campus.

[2] The Castle was built in 1928 by Dr. John Hall Smith, founder of the Middlesex College of Medicine and Surgery, on whose campus it stood until the school closed in 1945.