This may well be the creation of architect Clifton Hall, who favored in the early 1870s several salient design elements seen here: the floor-length first-story windows on the façade, the three-part, round-arch forms seen in both the front porch and the hall window above it, and the elaborate cornice with brackets that slip below it and over the wall surface below. Hall was a prolific architect, with many houses and most of the city’s numerous public schools from the early 1870s to his credit. Richards, like many of his neighbors, was a merchant, partner in a furniture store Downtown.

– 2003 Guide to Providence Architecture