The Irving Langmuir House was the home of physicist-chemist Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir

Irving Langmuir was an American chemist and physicist. His most noted publication was the famous 1919 article "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules" in which, building on Gilbert N. Lewis's cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel's chemical bonding theory, he outlined his...

, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize during his research career with General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

. It was declared a National Historic Landmark

National Historic Landmark

A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

 (NHL) in 1976.

It is located at 1176 Stratford Road in Schenectady, in the middle of a suburban area east of Union College

Union College

Union College is a private, non-denominational liberal arts college located in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. In the 19th century, it became the "Mother of Fraternities", as...

 known as the General Electric Realty Plot

General Electric Realty Plot

The General Electric Realty Plot, often referred to locally as the GE Realty Plot or just The Plot, is a residential neighborhood in Schenectady, New York, United States...

, a historic district

Historic district (United States)

In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...

 to which it is a contributing property

Contributing property

In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...

. The neighborhood is residential, with large houses dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Architecturally, the house is unremarkable. It is a two-and-a-half-story building in a vernacular

Vernacular architecture

Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize methods of construction which use locally available resources and traditions to address local needs and circumstances. Vernacular architecture tends to evolve over time to reflect the environmental, cultural and historical context in which it...

 interpretation of the Colonial Revival

Colonial Revival architecture

The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...

 style

Architectural style

Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...

. The hipped roof

Hip roof

A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...

 is tiled in terra cotta

Architectural terracotta

Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...

 and pierced by two almost symmetrical dormer windows. A columned porch covers the Palladian-style main entrance. The interior follows a basic central-hall plan.
The house was probably built ca. 1900. Langmuir moved in in 1919, and lived there until his death in 1957. It was still in his family's hands when it was designated an NHL almost two decades later.