Carpenter Edward Hills was an active builder in the East State Street/College Hill neighborhood. This duplex shares qualities with his other Montpelier houses, including 48 Liberty Street and 76–78 E. State Street, while achieving its own singular design statement. The symmetrical building combines two smaller units to achieve the scale and presence of the city's many grander Queen Anne houses. The composition includes a series of rising, repeated, wood-shingled gables, from matching reentrant porches to double-story bay windows and attic gable. Coordinated cornice returns, window heads, and entablature at the top of the second floor help lock the multiple components into a tightly composed unity. Other than turned porch posts and balusters, there is little that is fussy in this design, but it achieves distinction for its middle-class patron through well-handled masses and surface textures.