Housed in a 1950's Georgian/Federal Revival brick building just outside the historic district, this museum contains what is considered to be the nation's premier collection of American folk art.

The expansion program called for about 19,000 square feet of new galleries, storage, and support space. Because the original building was sited behind a handsome rose garden, which separates it from the street, it was decided to keep this garden as a focus and arrange the new building beside it in a deferential way.

The new galleries on the first floor connect to the old building at one corner where a new entrance pavilion has been located. The building mass has been designed as four connected blocks of varying sizes to diminish their scale. A simple planted wood and brick pergola further modulates the space between the old building, the garden, and the addition. On the other side, the building skirts the edge of an eighteenth century cemetery and the swimming pool of the Williamsburg Inn shielding both from the street.

The new wing is conceived as out-buildings to the original building and has incorporated similar details and matching materials. The brick has been laid in the same Flemish bond and the roof covered with clay tile.