The house sits back from Pleasant Hill Road at the end of a semicircular driveway. There are two barns near it, both part of Brooks' original farm, long since subdivided. Both are considered contributing resources to the NRHP listing.[2]
Two and a half stories high with a setback southern wing one story shorter, the five-bay house is sided in clapboard. Its cross-gabled roof, shingled in asphalt, is trimmed with a plain molded cornice with plain frieze and ornate carved vergeboards in the gables, framing a pointed-arch window with hood molding on the more-visible southern and eastern faces. A brick chimney rises from the north end.[2]
A small wooden front entrance porch has a flat roof, bracketed cornice, piers with similar capitals and a cutout railing in between, and a plain frieze. The wing and west (rear) face have similar porches without the cutouts.[2]
The paneled wooden door leads to a central hall. Many of the finishings and trim in the 3,066 square feet (284.8 m2) of interior space[1] on both stories is original.[2]
Behind the house is a two-story vertical-sided wooden barn with a cross-gabled roof shingled in wood. The other barn, to the northwest, is sided in wood shingles with a gabled asphalt roof. Both are remnants of the original farm.[2]
Brooks, a descendant of one of Cornwall's oldest families, built this as a farmhouse around 1860. After the Civil War, summer boarders from New York City began coming to Cornwall, and Brooks quickly adapted it for use as a boardinghouse.[2]
The house has remained a residence ever since. Since September 2008, it has been for sale.[1]