This suitably impressive Colonial Revival school building is named for the famous author of the series of school readers, who taught at the university. The lead designer of the building, R. E. Lee Taylor, practiced in Norfolk but did a great deal of work in Charlottesville. In the early 1970s it was converted into artists' studios and galleries, which are open to the public.

The group of linked, pitched-roofed contemporary town houses on the hill behind are the McGuffey Hill Condominiums (1981, Frank Folsom Smith), 203–311 2nd Street NW, designed by one of the members of the Sarasota (Florida) School who was a former partner of Paul Rudolph.