Here we see a type and style of house that is unmistakably early 19th-century Providence: a two-and-a-half-story double house with paired principal entrances, capped by a console pediment with fluted brackets, at the center of its six-bay façade and a monitor-on-hip roof. Detail on the principal entrance is the architectural focus, as it is for many late Federal-period houses. The roof form is a particularly local idiosyncrasy, found not much beyond the greater metropolitan area. Built generally between 1800 and 1830, it serves two purposes: visually, it creates a compelling culmination to the architectural composition; functionally, it enhances interior ventilation by creating convection current that draws air in on the lower stories and expels it here, at the top.
Church was a housewright; Pearce, a mason. The two original owners probably also built the house, perhaps as an investment and surely as a sample of their craftsmanship. Pearce sold his half to Church two years after the house was completed. This house was one of several area houses restored in the 1920s by Theodore Francis Greene (1867-1961), later Governor of and Senator from Rhode Island; Greene, who lived across the street at 14 John Street, played an early and key role in preserving this neighborhood.
— 2008 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook
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