Evolved houses are always interesting in the way they reveal history and changes in architectural taste through their layers. This house, built by city marshall Henry G. Mumford, was originally only 2-1/2 stories high. When John and Ellen Brown bought the house in 1874, it must have seemed to them too small and too simple. Brown was a partner with G. W. Ladd in John A. Brown & Co, manufacturers of, among other things, the “Ladd Patent Stiffened Gold Watch Case.” The renovations the Browns undertook no doubt provided a more suitable domestic setting for a business owner. The Browns raised the house and inserted a new 1st story, much taller and more impressive than the original, and extended the building beyond its original footprint to the west and south. The most telling change, however is the porch that extends across the west elevation and links the principal rooms with the garden to the west; by the 1870s, interest in creating such transitional zones between indoors and outdoors had become an important factor in house design. On the interior, the Browns fitted out the principal rooms with bold Renaissance Revival trim, similar in spirit to the trim that adorns the exterior of the new 1st story.
— 2006 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook
House, before 1857. Italianate: 3 1/2 stories; clapboard; gabled roof set end to street with paired- bracket cornice; 3 bay facade with heavy bracketed window caps off-center; Italianate arcaded entrance portico and arcaded porch along west side.
— College Hill National Historic District; 1976