American Woolen Company Townhouses

Six two-story red brick buildings on Market Street in South Lawrence, Massachusetts, hold seven residential units each. The American Woolen Company built them around 1907, after buying the lot from the Essex Company, as part of its only major housing project, which provided homes for 142 families between 1906 and 1910. Local architect James E. Allen designed the Georgian Revival buildings, which have flat roofs, brick quoins, bracketed eaves, scrolled or segmental pediments and small oriel windows. Three private ways, named for company mills, run between the buildings. A 1912 survey of Lawrence housing judged the company's houses superior to most mill-built and commercially built housing in the city, and singled out the brick townhouses as interesting homes for working people. Mill operatives from the company's Lawrence mills lived in them. The buildings retain largely intact layouts and historic trim, though doors and windows were replaced in a 2010 rehabilitation. The group is listed for its association with company housing and for its architecture.