Although small and tightly constricted on either side of the road, this is a remarkably well-preserved operating family farm with a full complement of farm buildings, most of which date from the Greek Revival period. The oldest portion of the house is its three-bay, set-back ell, fronted by a later porch. To this, Andrew Paine added a one-and-one-half-story, five-bay, center-chimney Greek Revival house with a narrow trap-door monitor dormer, which fronts on a sloping apple orchard.
The extensive outbuildings are laid out as two opposed arrangements of buildings on opposite sides of the road—those relating to traditionally female-dominated tasks gathered around the house, with the male domain around the barn across the road. On the house side, all outbuildings occur in right-angled relationships, taking their alignment from the house. On the barn side, two clusters converge toward the house in angular relationship. The angles, in turn, respond to a curve in the road. The three buildings that make up the barn cluster touch one another at right angles, with the carriage shed as intermediary. It comes corner-to-corner with the barn, while the garage butts one of its long sides.
Around the bend is the shop, now converted to an apple salesroom, which once housed Andrew Paine's alternative livelihood of coffin maker and undertaker. His long, narrow workbench remains. The hearse had its own coffinlike shed, a little removed from the shop but so placed that its walls parallel those of the shop in front. How functional this siting of the farm complex! And how the instinctual spacing, grouping, and ordering of the functions of this farm in relation to its site enhance the meaning of this place! In his role as carpenter, Andrew Paine assisted in the building of nearby North Foster Free Baptist Church (see next entry), as he was also a leader in founding it.