Providence built well in the mid-19th-century Italian Renaissance mode, as seen at 72, 75, and 79 Prospect Street, and here is yet another fine variation on that theme. In a citywide context, it is probably more typical in scale and materials than those on Prospect, but its design is equally fine, one of the better ones in the city. A solid, foursquare cube of a building, it achieves a modest monumentality through deft manipulation of scale and boldness of detail. On the interior, Providence’s symmetrical center-hall plan with flanking parlors obtains.
Mrs. Smith, the widow of Albert F. Smith (who seems to have died some years before she built this house), lived here with her daughter, also named Emma. Mrs. Smith was the assistant teacher at the Fountain Street Primary School, located between Fountain and Sabin Streets just east of Aborn Street in what is today Downtown Providence. The Smiths remained here only a few years.
— 2006 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook
98 Emma Smith House, 1854. Italianate; 2-1/2 stories; clapboard; hipped roof with balustraded deck and dormers; bracket cornice; 3 bay facade with molded window caps; central doorway under Italianate entrance hood.
— College Hill National Historic District; 1976