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The Old West Side Historic District within the Old West Side neighborhood was designated as such for its essential character as a unique community of homes. The physical environment is characterized by its small single-family homes situated on tree-lined streets.

About 85 percent of the houses are of frame construction. A majority have clapboard exteriors, some have facades of shingles or stucco, and about 15 percent are brick. The typical house is rectangular, two stories high, with six or seven rooms. It has a front gabled roof, a pillared front porch, and ornament on the porch, gable, and around the windows. The larger houses are generally irregular in plan, have front and side porches, have more details and protrusions, and are more elaborately ornamented. The outstanding character of all of the homes lies in the variety of ornament of all styles, shapes, and textures, generally of machine-tooled wood.

Nearly every style prevalent in the United States during the Gilded Age and its aftermath (1860-1914) is represented in the Old West Side. The larger houses tend to predominate along W. Liberty and W. Huron. Represented are Gothic cottages, Romanesque villas, Italianate bracket houses, Colonial and Georgian revival mansions, Queen Anne, American picturesque, Tudor, stick, mansard, Greek revival, and "carpenter's delight" houses. Although these two streets contain the largest and most elaborate homes, other large homes appear throughout the area.

The smaller homes predominate on most of the other streets of the neighborhood. The architecture is less varied but in many cases equally interesting due to the subtle changes in detail and ornament from house to house. The predominant smaller house styles are simple vernacular Greek Revival (which are some of the oldest homes on the OWS, dating from the 1850s), scaled-down Italianate, Queen Anne ornamental houses, classic revival (generally less ornamental houses), small plain New England, and colonial revival.

Many homes do not fit exactly into these styles but are an eclectic mixture. Unlike many 20th century houses that are oriented to enclosed private back yards, the orientation of most Old West Side houses is to the neighborhood, with their porches fronting the street. Wooden ornament is the outstanding feature; while such ornament was characteristic of the period 1860-1910, the large amount used in the Old West Side suggests that the early German residents found this decoration congenial. The modest houses, their front porches, their interesting and varied ornament, and the pleasing relationship between building and landscape exemplify the character of the neighborhood.