H. Langford Warren designed this house as his family's residence eleven years after he launched the architecture program at Harvard and department meetings were sometimes held here. Warren also was a leader in Boston's Arts and Crafts movement, and his house is a classic example of the regional approach to Arts and Crafts architecture. In its three-and-a-half-story cross-gabled, stuccoed design, the house alludes to both English Georgian and colonial sources, enhanced by many handcrafted embellishments inside and out. Also typical is the integration of the house with its walled and terraced garden to the rear, which Warren conceived to take advantage of its situation overlooking the grounds of the Harvard observatory.