This sedate medium-sized house has a typical projecting flare to differentiate the shingled second floor from the floor below, which is also shingled, rather than the favored contrasting brick or stone, which would have been more expensive. The gable-on-hip roof was originally symmetrical, extending beyond the walls as deep eaves. The use of this elegant standard roof type, which vaguely translates the typical shape of roofs for Japanese temples and houses into American carpentry, may have been influenced by the enthusiasm of the Aesthetic Movement for things Japanese. The asymmetrical placement of the porch counters the symmetry of the principal massing. Elizabeth Clarke, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, was secretary to the naturalist Alexander Agassiz.