The house is surrounded by a detailed baroque cast-iron gate. Extended front-gabled parapets of the projecting wings are comprised of intricately corbelled brickwork, a feature reflected throughout the building.

It is a tour de force of romantic 1920s’ eclecticism; the limestone-trimmed brick building evokes early seventeenth-century English architecture with its stepped gable facing Ohio Avenue and its stone-cased bay window and entrance alcove on West 4th Street.

The sloping profiles of the library’s battered red brick walls give the building a more forceful spatial presence than if the walls were flat planes. Continuous horizontal clerestory windows at the top of the walls suffuse the interior with daylight while keeping interior wall surfaces free of interruption. The thick, overhanging roof soffit ensures that daylight, as it enters, will be modulated and diffused.