Perched on Prospect Hill, Marsh Hall is the Othniel C. Marsh House, a red sandstone brownstone by J. Cleaveland Cady. This 3.5-story brownstone, fashioned of red sandstone, was designed for Othniel Marsh (1831–99) by architect J. Cleaveland Cady. The exterior of the main house was largely complete in 1878, and it took another three years to finish the interior — a patient, deliberate creation for one of the nation’s leading 19th-century paleontologists, who occupied it until his death.
Look up and you’ll see the Jacobean-revival language — asymmetrical massing, turrets, projections and decorative flourishes that made it one of the grandest private residences in the city at the time. The property includes 6.8 acres, or 2.8 hectares, of grounds now known as Marsh Botanical Garden, and in 1965 the house was declared a National Historic Landmark. Today the building is owned by Yale University and is occupied by the Yale School of the Environment.
Pause and take in the weight of the red sandstone, the deliberate variety of forms Cady employed, and the way the house gazes out over its planted setting. Out past the red sandstone lie 6.8 acres of grounds, now Marsh Botanical Garden.