Rockdale Common Housing District
Why it's listed
Six wood-frame tenements on McBride, Plantation and Taft Streets make up this housing group in Rockdale, a mill village in Northbridge. The Paul Whitin Manufacturing Company built them between about 1880 and 1917 to house workers, many of them French-Canadian immigrants recruited for the textile mill. The oldest is a vernacular Italianate building with decorative gable brackets. Four three-story Colonial Revival triple-deckers, built in 1917, form the dominant mass around a shared open yard, and a six-unit Colonial Revival rowhouse on Taft Street dates from about 1912. The buildings are valued as the best example in the village of company housing from the mill's peak growth, and as the largest and most cohesive cluster of triple-deckers in Rockdale. They show local carpentry and the move toward larger tenement forms. The mill sold the buildings in 1935. At the time of listing they were unoccupied and being renovated as low-income housing, with exteriors to be restored to their original appearance.
Machine-generated summary. This summary was generated by a language model from the official nomination document and has not been reviewed line by line by an editor. It may contain errors. Check the source document before relying on any detail. Source: nomination document (PDF) · catalog entry. Generated October 2026 (model claude-sonnet-5-5, prompt v1.0-2026-10-29).
| Period of significance | 1880-1917 |
|---|---|
| Styles | Italianate to Colonial Revival |
| Areas of significance | Industry, Community Planning and Development, Architecture |
| Acreage | 1 |
| Boundary source | NPS cultural-resource GIS polygon |
| Full listing page | Rockdale Common Housing District (property record) |
What listing means for this property
This is a historic district. Buildings within its boundary are either contributing (they add to the district's significance) or non-contributing. Owners of contributing income-producing buildings can claim the 20% federal rehabilitation tax credit; homeowners should look at state credits. National Register districts impose no design review by themselves; a local historic district ordinance, if one exists, does (the difference explained).
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm with your State Historic Preservation Office or a qualified adviser.