Oil and natural gas heir John L. Emerson commissioned architect Emmet Bailey of Oil City, who designed many Colonial Revival structures in the oil region, to build this brick Colonial Revival house. The imposing two-story semicircular portico overlooked nine acres of rolling lawns, which, in 1938, were subdivided into smaller building lots. Inside, the seventeen rooms retain their original details, including replicas of interior furnishings from the Emersons' favorite American houses, among which are fireplace mantels copied from Mount Vernon and from Monticello in Virginia; the dining room mantel imitates one of Stanford White's. The staircase duplicates the one designed by McKim, Mead and White for Pepperell House at Kittery, Maine. In 1951, the two-and-one-half-story house became the Presbyterian Residence, an assisted living facility.