[1] It was designed and built in 1868 by Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886) for William Dorsheimer (1832–1888), prominent local lawyer and Lieutenant Governor of New York.

It is a 2+1⁄2-story brick dwelling and represents the profound influence of French ideas on the arts in the post Civil War period.

[2] The three-story building is of a relatively simple design featuring incised decorations of rosettes and triglyphs.

The house features horizontal bands of gray sandstone across the ochre brick facade and vertical stone at the buildings corners.

The windows on the structure are framed by vertical bands of the same gray sandstone and are in perpendicular rows.