Its front elevation is a single bay only, with superimposed windows stacked above a timber-panelled door framed by a flat architrave and a round-headed fanlight, the kind of restrained Georgian composition that wouldn't ordinarily attract a second glance. But the two enormous chimney stacks that pierce the roofline suggest the structure is considerably older than its rendered facade implies, carrying within it the bones of something pre-eighteenth century.

The building appears in Thom's 1750 Directory as the 'Carpenter's Alms-houses', a designation that locates it within the tradition of trade-guild philanthropy common in early modern Dublin and elsewhere in these islands. Almshouses were residential buildings provided by guilds, corporations, or wealthy benefactors for the relief of the poor or aged, often those connected to a specific trade. John Rocque's map of 1756 adds a further complication: it shows a large building on this site whose long axis runs parallel to Arbour Hill, rather than at right angles as the present structure does. Rocque labels this earlier building the 'Carpenters Widdows House', suggesting that what stands today either replaced or substantially reorientated a precursor that served the widows of guild members. The shift in alignment between the two recorded structures points to a significant intervention at some point between those early map surveys and the building that survives now.

The building faces onto Arbour Hill, a short road that runs between Stoneybatter and the area around Collins Barracks, and is best approached on foot. The east elevation, which is four bays wide, offers more to look at than the somewhat compressed street frontage. The west facade is largely solid, with only a small cluster of windows at the north end and a two-storey return at the south. The brickwork beneath the render finish is visible at the north-east corner, where the angle of the building creates a slight break in the surface, and it is here that the layered building history becomes most legible to anyone paying close attention.