This imaginative blend of late Victorian eclectic style, like several of the houses on Pleasant Street, is the product of the prosperity that resulted from Laconia’s new and expanding post–Civil War industrial economy. Regarded in its day as one of the finest residences in the city, it was erected in 1886–1887 for James Hersey Tilton, a prominent local store owner and bank executive and trustee. Most conspicuously expressed are characteristics of the Queen Anne style—various intersecting, irregular roof forms; an irregular floor plan; a dominant corner tower topped by a round, flared roof with finial; turned upper tower stage and porch supports, and spindlework ornamentation; decorative half-timbering in certain gables; solid, irregularly curved porch support brackets; and recessed balconies with balustrades. The impact of the burgeoning Shingle Style may be seen in the front facade Romanesque arch, and the continuous shingled wall surfaces, flared at the horizontal cornice line separating the first and second stories. The overall composition is complex but visually satisfying.