The original house was built about 1835 by well-to-do paper manufacturer James Henry Speer.

It is a 1+1⁄2-story, Bungalow / American Craftsman inspired frame dwelling sheathed in clapboard.

Also on the property are the levee built after a flood in 1913, contributing gazebo (c. 1910), pergola (c. 1910), and outhouse.

By 1899 he and his wife Winifred Brady Adams, a still-life painter, took over full possession of the property.

This article about a property in Franklin County, Indiana on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.