A handsome and well-maintained Italianate residence, the Thomas-Conner House was built in the 1870s for William Thomas. It later was inherited by the Conner family, who owned it for many years. Although the house employs the fashionable Italianate detailing of the 1870s, including round-arched windows and a deep bracketed cornice, the two-story, double-pile, center-passage format is a traditional residential formula used in the area over preceding decades. The restrained Italianate style echoes that used in the earliest buildings of Virginia Tech and may have shared common builders. The house stands prominently on one of the largest lots in the central area of the Montgomery County town of Blacksburg, signaling the fact that this was a prestigious location for a leading local family. In recent times the Thomas-Conner House was acquired by the town and sensitively adapted for office use.

The Thomas-Conner House was listed in the registers under the Prehistoric and Historic Resources of Montgomery County MPD.  The property was removed from listing in the National Register of Historic Places as a result of an owner objection that, due to a procedural error, had not been submitted at the time of its listing.  The Thomas-Conner House remains eligible for listing in the National Register as a good example of Italianate-Victorian residential architecture.