James C. Costello was an important real estate investor who played a significant role in the development of Irvington.  In 1910 he engaged the firm of Jacobberger and Smith to design this grand house.  Jacobberger was by this time one of Portland's premier residential architects, having fulfilled large-scale commissions for homes on both sides of the river.  In later years he became locally renowned for his religious buildings, designing St. Mary's Cathedral in Northwest Portland and the Church of the Madeleine in Irvington, among his many commissions for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.

Joseph Jacobberger was born 1867 in Alsace-Lorraine and emigrated to the U.S. with his parents in 1871, settling first in Omaha, Nebraska. He graduated from Creighton University in Omaha and apprenticed in architecture with several firms in that city.  He came to Portland in 1890, working for a while for the prestigious firm of Whidden and Lewis. Around 1900, he set of on his own.  In 1912 he formalized his working relationship with his colleague Alfred H. Smith when they formed the partnership of Jacobberger and Smith.  It is believed that Smith was involved in the design of this house, but the exact extent of his contribution is not known.

James Costello and his wife Mary lived in this house from its completion in 1912 until 1923, shortly before James retired from the real estate business.  In his real estate career he had developed the Terwilliger homestead addition in Portland as well as subdivisions in the Queen Anne and Capital Hill areas of Seattle.

When it was built, this house cost the immense sum of $20,000, making it one of the most expensive homes in Irvington up to that time.  Over the years, however, the house was allowed to run down, and by the 1990's it was a seriously deteriorated wreck, having been severely damaged by an ill-advised conversion to 3 apartments in the 1960's.  That conversion resulted in removal of the glass canopy over the entry, destruction of the grand staircase in the interior, and much structural and mechanical disruption.

In 2002, a local real estate investor began the arduous job of restoring the home to its as-built condition, painstakingly rebuilding the interior staircase from parts found in the attic, reconstructing the badly damaged facade based on old photographs (like the one above) and copies of the original drawings (found in the Architecture and Allied Arts Library at the University of Oregon), and generally turning the house back into the grand mansion that it had been.  A listing on the National Register of Historic Places was achieved in September, 2001, on account of the home's connection with Joseph Jacobberger and its status as an outstanding work by a master architect.  The house participates in the Oregon Special Assessment program in which its value for property tax assessment purposes is frozen at its 2001 (pre-rehab) level for 15 years.