When Ivy Club built its two- story, shingle clubhouse in 1883, Prospect Avenue was still a muddy lane with a scattering of houses and farms. Recently carved from the old Bayles Farm, the lots for sale along Prospect had a distinctly bucolic character, and Ivy's architect, Frederick B. White, accordingly selected to design Ivy in the Queen Anne style, prevalent in the domestic architecture of the period. Shingled on the second floor and clapboard below, White's Ivy set the tone for the earliest clubs: cottage- like structures of shingle construction, drawing on rural rather than urban influences.