The Art Deco style, or the idiom derived from the Paris Exposition of 1925, gained some following in Richmond, mainly for commercial structures. The state government only tentatively embraced it, for this large structure that might be mistaken for a hotel or an apartment building is actually part of the state's mental hospital system. The seven-story central pavilion is flanked by six-story wings, a treatment that recalls New York high-rise massing of the 1920s and 1930s. Height is emphasized by the vertical brick piers capped by cast stone floral ornament in the Parisian style of the period. A handsome Art Deco porte-cochere greets the visitor.