This one-story wood-framed house has a rectangular plan and gabled roof. It is clad in narrow clapboard siding. A full porch, recessed beneath the shingled gable end, has paired posts with unusual corbelled capitals. Large ornamental brackets are set beneath the wide roof overhang. The cottage was built in 1910 by contractor R. W. McDonald for Adam & Susan Vera, who sold the house less than a year later to Jay M. Axtell. Axtell was co-owner of the Axtell Co., manufacturers of windmills, well drilling equipment and related mechanical items. Axtell, active in civic affairs as well, lived here through the mid 1920s. The house is an excellent example of a wooden bungalow of its period. The Axtell House is a contributing resource in the Fairmount-Southside Historic District (local and national).
