The Parsons House is an excellent example of the upright-and-wing style of Vernacular Folk house that was popular in the Midwest following the Civil War. The wooden house retains vestiges of the Greek Revival style in its six-over-six windows and window pediments, but the steeply pitched roofs speak more to the Gothic Revival style. There are large overhanging eaves with no decoration to speak of.

Born in Chicago in 1906, architect Joseph Albano studied at Northwestern University and later at the Illinois Institute of Technology under the modern architecture master Mies van der Rohe. Albano and his wife Emma (Krechefsky) arrived in Ann Arbor in 1947 when Joseph began teaching at the University of Michigan School of Architecture. Unlike other professors of the day who built homes in Ann Arbor Hills, the Albanos built theirs on the northwest side of town (now called Upper Water Hill).