Designed by architect H. Neil Wilson, it was built in 1888 when the area north of Park Square developed as a commercial and retail part of downtown Pittsfield.

It is a four-story steel and masonry structure, built out of Philadelphia pressed red brick with rusticated brownstone trim.

It has a central full-height section, seven bays wide, capped by a hip roof, which has flanking three-story mansarded wings.

Windows in the outermost two bays on each side have stone sills, and are topped by a course of brickwork that extends across the width of the outer sections.

The architect was H. Neill Wilson, a prominent local architect, and the builder was D.C. Munyan, who was responsible for the construction of a number of other nearby buildings, including the adjacent Academy of Music (burned 1912), the Berkshire County Courthouse, and the Berkshire Athenaeum, both prominent structures on Park Square.