Alvin H. Van Pelt was operating a hardware business in two tents near the Colorado River when the Santa Fe developed the Ballinger town site in 1886. Van Pelt acquired five lots and contracted with Whitt to build this two-story house. The house is a rectangle with a cross-hall plan, a projecting bay on the southeast corner, and a polygonal tower on the northeast. A one-story porch with Ionic columns was added later. The house was occupied by the family until 1932, after which it was used as a boarding house, was divided into apartments, and then became a nursing home. Since 1974, the house has gradually been returned to its original condition as a single-family house.
Nearby, the 200 to 400 blocks of N. 7th Street and the 600 block of N. 8th Street contain numerous fine examples of early-twentieth-century residential styles, including Prairie, Mission, Queen Anne, classical, and Pueblo, all indications of the prosperity brought to Ballinger by railroad commerce.