An architectural drawing of one of the first floor
windows, done in the 1930s as part of the HABS
drawings of the Stanton-Davis Homestead.
The house is a central-chimney structure similar to many houses of the period, two stories tall with a pitched roof. Apparently, the west end was built first and the east end added later. The house has been characterized as a Rhode Island house, rather than a Connecticut House, in certain elements of its construction and detailing, such as the eight foot ceilings, and also the corner cabinet in the parlor. The house's proximity to Rhode Island explains the converging influence.
The house is oak framed. Three rafters, damaged in the hurricane of 1938, were replaced with oak beams milled specifically for the repair. The façade is clapboard on planking. Shingles on the rear were "modern" according to information recorded by the Connecticut Society of Colonial Dames in 1901, while, it is claimed, the shingles on the end walls are "original". Though it is unlikely that the same shingles, dating from the 18th-century, are still in place, nonetheless they are unusual for their great length of three feet and height of one foot. The foundations of the house are fieldstone, laid with shell lime. The chimney, which is brick from about four feet above the floor, was probably rebuilt in brick at the time the east end was added on. It stands on a fieldstone foundation and has been plastered with concrete in the attic. There is a heavy overhang at the gable ends and a deep overhanging cornice. Similarly, much of the interior woodwork may date from the time of the east end's construction.
The façade, five bays wide, contains nine windows with twelve-over-twelve sash and a plain door with a six-light transom. Twelve-over-twelve sash predominate in the rest of the house. Though some of the window frames which project from the walls have been replaced, others exhibit molded sills and pegged construction, with the sills and heads extending beyond the jambs. In the two attic windows of the east end, the lower sashes are two panes high and the upper sashes are three panes high; this is reversed in the windows of the west end, with two panes in the upper and three panes in the lower sashes. Frederick Kelly described this uneven configuration as "the earliest type of double-hung window with rectangular panes," and states that the projection of the window frame beyond the exterior wall covering is "a marked characteristic of these early window frames." Thus, it seems that the windows of the Stanton-Davis Homestead, though double-hung, are nonetheless of an early type.
There are several one-story single rooms added to the rear of the house. They appear to date from the late 18th- or early 19th-century, while a hipped roof one-room additional probably was built in the early 20th century.
