As this elegant, substantially constructed house neared completion, owner Charles McIntosh, director of the Milwaukee Harvester Company, proudly threw open its doors to newspaper reporters. They got a room-by-room tour from the Michigan brownstone two-story Corinthian portico to the red Galesburg paving brick used to create especially sturdy walls. The exterior of McIntosh’s costly house reflects turn-of-the-twentieth-century American enthusiasm for Beaux-Arts classical architecture. Although the style was at its height, his choice of materials made this house seem old-fashioned soon after its completion. Its dark red brick and chocolate-colored brownstone, rather than white limestone, meant that McIntosh’s house did not live up to the pale classical ideal.

Although the building has been a school for many years, the interior retains much of its original elegance. The most impressive interior space is a fifty-foot-long French-style ballroom with a plaster-covered ceiling, large windows topped with semi-elliptical leaded-glass transoms, and crystal wall sconces.