This is one of a group of Federal-era houses south of the common that date to the period when Craftsbury Common was a shire village and the county's commercial center. It is a small wood-frame Cape notable for its doorway, with bold fluted pilasters topped by double capitals and a molded cornice that surround a graceful semielliptical leaded-glass fanlight above a six-panel door. Local records indicate the house was built for Leander W. Wheeler, who ran a harness shop in it for forty years. Although local finish carpenters in rural Vermont retained a Federal vocabulary into the late 1830s, the frontispiece, whose pilasters seem more Georgian than Federal, appears to predate 1830. In fact it seems even earlier than the farmhouse one door south that was probably built by 1810 for Samuel French. This house has an Asher Benjamin– inspired Palladian doorway in the Adamesque style. In the 1930s, both houses became summer residences for prominent individuals enamored with Colonial Revival, a trend in the common. T. Edward Ross of Philadelphia expanded and reworked the French house. Like many restoration enthusiasts of the time, he freely imported mantelpieces and features from other colonial houses. Judge and Ethel Covington of Washington, D.C., added a large rear ell, a restored central chimney, twelve-over-twelve windows, and many other features to the Wheeler House. Whether these restoration and reworking efforts extended to the frontispieces of the houses is unknown.