It was built as the estate of Frederick Lente, surgeon at the nearby West Point Foundry and later a founder of the American Academy of Medicine, in the mid-19th century.

All the other houses on the street to the north of the one-acre (4,000 m2) lot where the building stands are of modern, late 20th- and early 21st-century construction and design.

[3] A line of mature trees stands along the top of a slight drop to the south which gives it a view over the Hudson River to the United States Military Academy at West Point to the south, Crow's Nest, Storm King and other peaks of the Hudson Highlands to the east and Newburgh Bay to the north.

Just below are one-story commercial buildings and their parking lots along the curving section of Chestnut Street, part of New York State Route 9D.

Across the road to the southeast are some of the remaining buildings of the West Point Foundry and its archeological site, both listed on the Register and being considered for National Historic Landmark status.

[3] On the west (front) facade, the segmental-arched main entrance, marked by a molded wooden frame flush with the wall and a four-light transom, is flanked by two arched windows.

On the east, facing the cul-de-sac, is another door in the northern bay, with a small wooden porch and concrete steps.

The center-hall floor plan on both stories has not been altered, and the plaster walls, ceilings and wood trim, including the staircase with turned first-floor newel post appear to be original.

Located along the banks of a small cove where a small brook flowed into the Hudson River on the south side of the village, it made both military and civilian products, from cannon to the pipes that were laid to open the Croton Aqueduct and bring clean water to Manhattan.

[3] In 1852, the Foundry Association sold Lente the four-and-a-half-acre (1.8 ha) parcel where the house and Grove Court now stand.

Closer to Cold Spring, he built the James and Mary Forsyth House up the Hudson in Kingston in 1850.

At one point he tells the architect that the upper floor's bedroom was "unnecessarily large" and should be reduced by a foot (30 cm).

Its plan is basically rectangular, and it is built of masonry faced in painted brick, with arched windows set with multi-pane sash.

He was a member of many professional societies, and helped found the American Academy of Medicine, an early organization devoted to raising educational standards in the profession.

The roof was clad with polychromatic hexagonal slate shingles, and pierced by flat-roofed dormer windows, three on the long sides and two on the short.

A couple who live in a neighboring house offered to purchase it for $1,000, but the village board rejected that price as "insultingly low.