The original portion of the complex, completed in 1918, for Francis F. Palmer consists of an almost square, three-story brick house with a low stone basement, and two stories of dormer windows set in the steeply pitched high slate roof, which is reminiscent of Georgian antecedents.
Five windows wide on Park Avenue with four on Ninety-third Street, the evenly spaced windows are set in wide wall areas s e t up in English bond brickwork. Growning these red brick walls is a well-proportioned stone cornice composed of classical moldings, dentils and ornate modillions. The parapet wall set back from the cornice is pierced in front of each pedimented dormer by open balustrades. With the exception of the fifth floor bull’s-eye windows, all those of the east and south elevations are symmetrically arranged.