A somber brick pile, the Lucy Tarr House combines Queen Anne massing with Stick Style decoration but manages to appear strangely modern in its general understatement and overall lack of frills. A corbeled chimney rising from the center of the gabled facade and a three-story tower that contains an elaborate stairway are among its few overt flourishes. Ellen Hunter Tarr, who attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, designed the house for herself, the sister for whom it is named, and a bachelor brother. The three siblings, whose father was the first Treasurer of West Virginia, descended from one of the area's pioneer families.