These four modest homes of rock-faced granite were designed by Ernest Flagg, a BeauxArts–trained New York architect, the designer of such landmark buildings as the Scribner Building in New York City, the Corcoran Museum of Art in Washington, D.C., and a number of major structures at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Toward the end of his career Flagg advocated the idea that every American should live in a stone house. In 1922 he published a book, Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction. These four Flagg-designed residences near the University of Richmond campus were built by a Richmond developer, and each reflects Flagg's interest in creating an original American domestic style by melding certain aspects of English and French vernacular architecture with early American architectural features.