The houses at 59 and 77 Sixth Street in the Railroad Addition neighborhood were occupied historically by Robert Lucas and Mary E. Rose.

They were built in 1898 as a rare set of builder's houses adapted from a single pattern book design and repeated on neighboring lots in mirror image. The houses appear to be based on the temple-fronted Queen Anne style house with wrap-around veranda published as Design No. 47 in George F. Barber's Cottage Souvenir, a plan book brought out by the author in revised and enlarged edition in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1892 and widely circulated.

Stylistically, the houses are versions of a vernacular type known as "Tri-gabled Ell" or "Homestead House."

Adapted from the NRHP nomination submitted in 1988.