Mary Hale Cunningham was the widow of James Cunningham, a partner until his death in 1890 in the successful San Francisco firm of Cunningham, Curtiss, & Welch, importers, jobbers, book publishers, and stationers. Sometime before 1905, Mary Cunningham moved to New York City, where she had family and financial interests, and later commissioned this house for her family and servants.
The abstracted neo-Tudor style facade features a ground-story enframement with paired fluted Doric pilasters. A monumental keyed enframement on the second and third stories, capped by a drip molding, with long, narrow windows with multi-pane sash and ornamental terra-cotta spandrel panels; a fourth-story band of windows; a brick gable flanked by crenels; and wrought-iron railings.