Ward, a mechanical engineer, built the house with his friend Robert Mook to demonstrate the viability of the material for building.

[2] It was later purchased by Mort Walker, creator of the comic strip Beetle Bailey, who used it to house the Museum of Cartoon Art from 1976 to 1992.

Most of the house's 8-acre (3.2 ha) lot is located on the Connecticut side of the state line, where it is open and slopes downward to the east and the Byram River.

[1] The building itself is made entirely of reinforced concrete, from the foundation to the mansard roof that caps the two-story main block.

The mansard roof is pierced by classically inspired gabled dormer windows and two concrete chimneys; a third is on the west side.

Another central hall on the second floor leads to three bedrooms and a library with decorative woodwork in an Elizabethan mode.

The main block and its mansard roof are in high Second Empire architectural style, and the more Gothic tower allows for panoramic views over Long Island Sound.

Seven years later, in 1883, Ward presented his own paper on the house's construction to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

[1] From 1976 until 1992 the unaltered castle housed the Museum of Cartoon Art established by Mort Walker two years earlier.