Made more commanding by its siting on a steep rise over the Pawtuxet, the first of two houses built by William B. Spencer is among the finest and most elaborate Greek Revival houses in the state. It boasts a two-story, four-columned Corinthian temple front, with flanking hip-roofed wings. Downhill, toward Fairview Avenue, at a lower level, yet another hip-roofed appendage with its own porch supported at its outside corner by a single Doric column animates the composition in an exceptionally picturesque manner for the style. The client was a merchant and store owner in Phenix and Lippitt, as well as a bank president and undertaker. The house is the more attractively sited because a pathway from this point to Harris (the next village upstream, in Coventry) winds through a linear park, which suggests the great potential for wooded walkways along much of the Pawtuxet.