It was built in 1903 by architect Charles Frederick Whittlesey, who briefly lived there with his family, and currently houses the Albuquerque Press Club.

The building is a rustic, three-story log and stone structure based on Norwegian Vernacular architecture, which is highly unusual for New Mexico.

It was originally intended to be a communal residence for the clerks and draftsmen at his architectural office and was named "Bungalow Barracks" with this in mind.

[5]Whittlesey bought land for the project at the edge of the city, near the high point of the Huning Highlands neighborhood, in December, 1902.

[9] From 1920 to 1960, the house was the residence of Clifford Hall McCallum, a business owner and socialite who entertained prominent guests including William Randolph Lovelace II, Clinton Anderson, and Clyde Tingley there.

For instance the fire place in the living room, made in the roughest possible style of the unhewn black rock from the lava bed over east, is reinforced by a very modern and well built steam heating plant so that one may have the picturesque without any of the usual discomforts of a frosted back.

[9] According to an Albuquerque Journal article from 1994, Inside, the building is something of a maze, with rooms splitting off a central hall and short stairways that twist their way upward.