This residence was designed by leading Rogue River Valley architect Frank Chamberlain Clark. It is one of a half dozen larger scale, unaltered, architect-designed or architect influenced houses in the Bungalow Style in Ashland.

The sweeping gable roof with upturned eaves and exposed rafters, the broad shed-roofed dormer, the full-width recessed front porch, the outside end chimney of both coursed ashlar and rough brick, and the Arts and Crafts interior are distinctive characteristics of the bungalow style. The building retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship and feeling.

The residence was built for prominent local banker and state legislator E. V. Carter. It superseded Carter's Queen Anne Style house of 1886 which, prior to its relocation to the opposite side of Siskiyou Boulevard in 1908, the Carters had occupied for seventeen years. Carter resided in his second house on Siskiyou Boulevard twenty-four years.

Following Carter's death in 1933, the house passed into the hands of department store executive C. W. Fortmiller who occupied it until 1946.

Adapted from the NRHP nomination submitted in 1981.