The Lou Ellen Parmelee House is the best remaining example of Late Victorian Queen Anne high style residential design in Monterey.

In 1896, the year of construction of the Parmelee House, Monterey was just beginning to emerge from a long period of dormancy precipitated by the Gold Rush of 1848. That seminal event in state history had stripped the former capital of Spanish and Mexican California of its population and its political power, leaving in its wake a sleepy seaside fishing village. It wasn't until the mid-1870s with the advent of railroad transportation into Monterey County that the quaint charm of the "Old Pacific Capital" and its unsurpassed natural setting were rediscovered.

Source: Excerpts from the NRHP nomination submitted in 1997.