In style, this house is Eastlake with a few Queen Anne overtones. The building was designed by the New York firm of Palliser and Palliser and was illustrated on plate 26 in their 1878/1888 publication Palliser's American Architecture. The architects described the Gardiner house as being of the “Jacobite Period.” They noted that in this house, “the roofs are shingled and painted black; the exterior walls are painted—body of the work Venetian Red and trimmed in Indian red, and cut work in black: each cut in with yellow; panels under veranda floors yellow.” Palliser and Palliser published a number of pattern books between 1876 and 1893, and in them they advertised not only their professional services but also plans from their books, which could be ordered for a modest sum. The fact that the Gardiner house was illustrated and under the client's name would strongly suggest that he commissioned the design from the architects.