This page starts with a few paragraphs on Draper housing from John Gardner's Model Company Town. Following that is a section from the National Register Nomination by Kathy Kelly Broomer. The NRN was written as part of the process of establishing the Hopedale Historic District. Probably most readers wouldn't go through it word for word, but you might like to skim it, looking for houses of interest. This section doesn't mention all of the houses in the district, but quite a few are here. In another part of the NRN, all of the houses are listed, along with a little information on their architectural style and the year in which they were built. If there is a house you'd like to know more about and can't find it here, you can see the NRN at the Bancroft Library, or email me (link on homepage) and I'll get the information to you.
Model Company Town
By John S. Garner
The Draper Company made an announcement concerning its housing in November 1904:
We are informed that the Superior Jury of the St. Louis Exposition have [sic] awarded us a gold medal for exhibit in Class 136, referring to the housing of workmen. Visitors to Hopedale have frequently commented on the superior houses furnished by our company for its help. We believe in making our town as attractive as possible as a matter of good business policy, since we are anxious to retain the services of high class labor.
In addition to receiving a gold medal for their housing exhibit at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, the company previously had earned a silver medal at the Paris Exposition of 1900. Other gold medals would be awarded at Liege in 1905 and Milan in 1906. That Hopedale received these international awards is revealing because the Drapers never sought public attention for their town or crusaded for housing reform. They did not build model houses to rectify existing conditions among their workers. Rather, theirs was simply a business proposition; good homes attract good workers and keep them healthy and content. This sensible and pragmatic attitude toward housing was not the result of a redirection in policy or new initiative but had been active since operations began.
The first company houses built by Drapers were placed along the northern end of Hopedale Street in 1857. From that date forward the number increased through periodic building campaigns taken between 1868 and 1874, throughout the 1880s, and again between 1896 and 1915. Aside from three boardinghouses, constructed primarily for single men, and a dozen or so single-family houses for managers, located mostly along Dutcher Street, all were double-family in type. Each apartment occupied half of a symmetrical dwelling.
Double-family houses had several advantages over single-family houses or multifamily tenements. Offering greater exterior volume that a detached house, they avoided appearing too small, though they reduced per unit construction costs and development area. As opposed to larger tenements, they conformed to an existing residential scale consistent with houses established by the earlier community. They also represented a smaller replacement liability if seriously damaged or destroyed by fire, and they appealed to families more than row houses or elevated flats because each unit had cross-room ventilation and three-quarter exposure to sunlight while providing a yard to the front, side and rear. Another advantage over larger tenements was that they could be built in limited numbers as the need arose. On occasion the Drapers let contracts for building only one house at a time. "The framing of the double-tenement house of the Hopedale Machine Company will be commenced this week" (August 30, 1882). Moreover, the time required for constructing one double-family house rarely exceeded one week from start to finish, minimizing delays in time for occupancy and making an easy job for small contractors like Chapman and Winn or Albertus C. Hussey and Son of Milford, who built most of the earlier units. On the other hand, it took Mead, Mason and Company two months in 1887 to complete a three-story, sixteen-room boardinghouse at the corner of Dutcher and Prospect streets. [Since there is no "corner of Dutcher and Prospect streets," I assume this must have been the Park House at the corner of Dutcher and Freedom streets.]
If living in a company house subjected tenants to some form of social stigma, it was not because of the living arrangements at Hopedale. Double-family houses had existed from the very beginning, for the earlier community joined families in partitioned structures built in the 1840s. The type continued as a sensible way to build, given the need for economy in both construction time and materials. The Drapers also considered population density and the amount of land available for development, and laying out single-family houses as an alternative posed drawbacks. Detached houses spread development over a greater area, entailing a larger investment in site preparation, whereas a tighter arrangement of houses avoided this problem and left more open area for landscaping. It seems reasonable that considerations of housing density per development area went beyond questions of land economy and available space to the question of time and distance between factory and home. Without overcrowding, workers needed to be housed near the factories to permit them to walk between home and work or return at noon for a hot meal, yet be able to enjoy a yard and a degree of privacy. Model Company Town, pp. 205-207.
National Register Nomination
Draper Company Double Houses and Boardinghouses
By Kathy Kelly Broomer
Hopedale is distinguished for its extensive collection of double houses, built for employees of the Draper Company. While the company's residential construction was not limited to double houses and boardinghouses, and apparently included an undetermined number of single-family dwellings, the surviving double houses and boardinghouse convey the strongest historical associations with company housing in Hopedale Village. At least forty-five different double house designs were built in the village from the 1860s thorough the 1910s. Many of these designs are variations of a smaller number of standard double house plans, which could be modified with regard to their exterior architectural ornament, the location of entries and porches, the use of window bays, etc. The exterior features of most of the forms present in the village are briefly described here. Approximately eight different forms were used in the period from the 1860s to ca. 1890. The majority of double house forms, however, were introduced between the late 1890s and the mid-1910s.
The earliest extant double houses in the area were built in the 1860s in the vicinity of the Draper plant. In general, these houses maintain their historic form, though exterior alterations have resulted in window replacement, the installation of artificial siding, and the removal or obscuring of historical ornament. Architects and builders have not been identified for most houses in this group, and more information is needed on plans.
The double house at 63 - 65 Freedom Street (ca. 1860) at the corner of Prospect Street is an example of the side-gable form most commonly found in Hopedale. This 2½-story house, six bays by two bays with a pair of brick chimneys on the roof ridge, has a granite foundation, asbestos siding, and an asphalt shingle roof. Entries are paired in what appears to be a later 19th-century hip-roofed front porch addition spanning the second to fifth bays; the porch is now enclosed. Windows contain primarily 6/6 sash. Another form of early double house that is uncommon in the village is seen at 8?10 Union Street. (ca. 1860s) Here, a 1½ -story, side-gabled wings flank a 2 ½ story, two-bay, gable-front block at the center of the façade; each wing incorporates a brick interior end-wall chimney on the ridge and an entry with a small porch. The central gable-front block features brick chimneys on each slope.
Scattered double houses constructed from 1874 to ca. 1890 may be found in three general areas around the Draper plant; in the rectangular street grid northeast of the mill, on Freedom Street northwest of the mill, and on the present Cemetery Street, west of the mill. Their designs emphasize function. Few retain exterior ornament characteristic of a particular architectural style. Many have been altered with window sash replacement, installation of artificial siding, and enclosure of porches, though the historic building forms are still easily discerned. Six forms predominate.
The first double house type from the 1874-ca. 1890 period is 1½ stories with a side-gable roof, four bays across and two bays deep, with a pair of brick chimneys on the roof ridge and a front porch over the paired entries at the center of the façade. Four double houses of this type were constructed in 1874, and located originally on the north side of a portion of Union Street that then extended from Hopedale Street west to the Hopedale Village Cemetery. According to Garner [Model Company Town], Chapman and Winn built the houses to architect's designs, probably drawn by Milford architect Fred Swasey. Garner's in-depth study of these houses shows that each measures 40 feet by 27 feet, resulting in two units with footprints measuring 20 feet across and 27 feet deep. The height from foundation to roof ridge is 20 feet. The houses were clad in clapboard originally; all have been re-sided. Each unit, intended for a family of at least three and no more than five people, encompassed 1,080 square feet. The living room spanned the front of the house, and the dining room, and a kitchen were placed to the rear on the first floor. There were two bedrooms on the second floor, one at the front and one at the rear. Front porches were added in 1887 during an upgrade. All four houses were moved in 1907 due to the expansion of the Draper plant and subsequent removal of the Union Street connection over the Mill River. Three of the double houses are on Freedom Street. (113-115, 121-123, and 129-131 Freedom Street) and the fourth is at 19-21 Cemetery Street. All four houses now have cut-stone foundations that date to the 1907 move. The house at 129 - 131 Freedom Street has sustained the greatest amount of alteration and is now a full two stories in height.
A pair of square eave windows located over the entries at the center of the façade is the hallmark of the second and third types of double houses built during the 1874-ca. 1890 period. These 1½ -story side-gabled double houses are six bays across and two bays deep on a granite foundation. There are minimal exterior differences between the two types. Historic window sash, where it survives, is in a 2/2 configuration. One type of double house, which is found in the street grid northeast of the plant, has a pair of brick chimneys located just behind the roof ridge, a wide frieze at the eaves, and ornamental detailing at the paired entries. A well-preserved example is at 39-41 Prospect Street (ca. 1885) which includes gable returns, a wide plain frieze, a pair of square eave windows, eave brackets, and a single shed-roofed door hood over both entries that is supported by brackets. Windows originally contained 2/2 sash. Other examples of this type appear at 1-3 Hopedale Street (ca. 1885), which has a Colonial Revival-style entry surround with full-length sidelights at each door, and 35-37 Prospect Street (ca. 1885), which retains the shed-roofed door hood on replacement supports. A similar double house, also with square eave windows over the entries, is distinguished by two chimneys on, rather than behind, the roof ridge, and hop-roofed porches at the paired entries. Examples of this type are found on Cemetery Street, west of the Draper plant; 1-3 Cemetery Street (ca. 1890), 2-4 Cemetery Street (ca. 1890), 5-7 Cemetery Street (ca. 1890), 6-8 Cemetery Street (ca. 1885), 9-11 Cemetery Street (ca. 1890), and 10-12 Cemetery Street (ca. 1885). Another example is located at 16-18 Union Street (ca. 1885) in the street grid northeast of the mill complex.
The fourth double house form from the 1874-ca. 1890 period is also the most highly ornamented. This type of house was built in the street grid northeast of the plant. The 1½ -story type has a center-gable (also known as a cross-gable) roof, a stone foundation, and is six bays across on the main block and approximately three bays deep. There is a single brick chimney at the ridge of the center gable and two chimneys on the rear slope of the main block. A side-gabled lateral projection, one bay across and one bay deep, is set back from the façade on either side of the main block and effectively extends the façade of the building to eight bays across. If the façade as viewed from the street is considered eight bays across, the principal entries to each unit are located in the second and seventh bays, and the secondary entries are located in the first and eighth bays beneath shed-roofed side porches. Most of the porches have been enclosed. The houses tend to retain their original 2/2 wood sash. Intact ornament on these Victorian eclectic double houses includes oversized brackets supporting shed-roofed hoods over the principal entries, and brackets at the eaves. The best-preserved example is 12-14 Union Street (ca. 1875), which also retains oversized decorative trusses, a Stick-style feature, in the gable ends. The trusses apparently have been removed from other examples of this house type. Another well-preserved example is 3-5 Social Street (ca. 1875), which retains one shed-roofed side porch that has not been enclosed. More examples of the form are found at 8 Peace Street (ca. 1875), 19-21 Dutcher Street (ca. 1875), and 49-51 Dutcher Street (ca. 1875).
Double houses of the fifth type were likely constructed in the early 1880s. Examples are seen at 90-92 Freedom Street, 94-96 Freedom Street, 98-100 Freedom Street, 110-112 Freedom Street, and 36-38 Prospect Street. These are large houses, each 2½ stories on a stone foundation, with a side-gabled roof and a pair of tall corbelled chimneys at the roof ridge. The façade of each building is six bays on the first floor, with entries in the first and sixth bays, and four bays on the second floor. Each building is roughly two bays deep, and each side elevation displays two square windows in the stair hall. Hip-roofed front porches survive at the entry of each house; all porches have been enclosed. Original window sash, where it survives, is 2/2 wood.
The sixth group of double houses from the 1870s-1880s period were built in 1889. Examples include 109-111 Freedom Street, 117-119 Freedom Street, and 133-135 Freedom Street. These 1½ -story buildings are four bays across and two bays deep, with entries paired at the center beneath an entry porch. The house at 125-127 Freedom Street has a shed-roofed front porch; the others have a hipped porch. The porches have been screened or enclosed with siding and sash. There is some surviving historic window sash in a 2/2 configuration. These double houses were located originally on the south side of a portion of Union Street that then extended from Hopedale Street west to the Hopedale Village Cemetery. On the opposite side of Union Street were the four houses built in 1874 by Chapman and Winn. Together, the eight double houses were known as Union Row. With the expansion of Draper plant in 1907, all eight buildings were moved to their present locations, seven on Freedom Street and one on Cemetery Street. The seven houses that were moved to Freedom Street were arranged in a single row, with the 1874 and 1889 houses alternating, and have come to be known as the "seven sisters." Garner's study notes that the front porches on the 1889 houses are original and the interior plans of those houses are similar to those of the houses constructed fifteen years earlier.
In addition to the double houses, another significant example of company housing built in Hopedale Village during this period is the boarding house later known as Hopedale House, 37 Dutcher Street (last quarter 19th century). The larges building for company housing surviving in the village, the boardinghouse is one of three the Draper Company built for unmarried employees. In 1887, Meade, Mason and Company of Milford built a boardinghouse on Dutcher Street, possibly this one. The state's Public Safety inspection record shows that Milford architect Robert Allen Cook designed additions to the three boardinghouses for the Drapers in the late 1890s; at least two of those boardinghouses were on Dutcher Street. [The other one on Dutcher Street was the Park House at the corner of Dutcher and Freedom. The third was the Brae Burn Inn at the corner of Adin and Hopedale. The late 1890s was a period of great expansion for the Draper Company, due to the success of the Northrop loom, introduced in 1894.]
The surviving Dutcher Street boardinghouse is 3½ stories on a raised basement with an L-shaped footprint and a cross-gable roof. The basement on the south elevation appears to be parged brick. The 1899 remodeling produced the current front block, twelve bays across and three bays deep, with entries in the third and ninth bay; the rear wing is six to seven bays with an entry in the center bay. In plan, the boardinghouse has a long, center hallway running laterally. There were reception, parlor, and dining spaces on the first floor, along with four bedrooms; twelve bedrooms each on the second and third floors, and at least nine bedrooms plus additional storage areas in the attic. The bedrooms ranged in width from eleven feet to almost twenty-two feet, and measured approximately sixteen feet deep from the windows on the façade or rear wall to the center line in the hallway.
Originally, the boardinghouse had a one-story projecting porch extending across most of the façade, and cross gables on the façade over the third bay at the northern end and over the ninth and tenth bays at the southern end. While the overall massing of the building is essentially intact, a number of alterations were made, including the addition of several typically 20th-century Colonial Revival-style features. Removal of the front porch, installation of pedimented porches on paired columns at the three entries, removal of the façade cross-gables, construction of shed-roofed and new gabled dormers, and replacement of original 2/2 sash with 6/6 sash all likely date to a 1935 renovation of the building. The state's Public Safety records at the Massachusetts Archives show the architect of the 1935 renovation as C.R. Whitcher of Manchester, New Hampshire. Whichter also designed General Draper High School, 25 Adin Street. The boardinghouse is now clad with vinyl siding and is used for apartments.
In Hopedale village, double houses built from the late 1890s to ca. 1916 are architect designed, 2½ stories, wood frame, and display greater variations in massing, roofline, and elevations than most of the Draper Company's earlier employee houses. Most are Colonial Revival or English (Tudor) Revival in style, with the influence of the Queen Anne style evident in the massing of certain turn-of-the century examples. Most of these double houses were constructed in subdivisions designed by professional landscape architects, who applied the principles of contour planning to each subdivision layout in order to maximize an area's natural topography and integrate the various buildings with the landscape. The most notable examples of this approach are Bancroft Park, the Lake Point Group, the Upper Jones Road Group, and the Lower Jones Road Group.
Bancroft Park (ca. 1896-1903) is a subdivision of thirty double houses with a site plan executed by landscape architect Warren Henry Manning. Set on a knoll, the subdivision is approached from Freedom Street and has an elliptical plan defined by a curving street, and smaller service roads located at the outer edges. The earliest dwellings, fourteen double houses at the center of the subdivision (houses with odd street numbers), are contained within the curve of the road and face outward. The later (even-numbered) houses were built at the periphery ca. 1900-1903 and face inward. Each unit encompasses approximately 1,500 to 1,700 square feet, and includes a parlor, dining room, and kitchen on the first floor and three bedrooms and a bathroom above. The units featured central heating, running water, and sewer hookup.
Bancroft Park double houses are 2½ stories on a rubble stone foundation, with two chimneys, synthetic siding (usually asbestos shingle, covering original cypress shingle), and windows containing 6/1, 6/6, casement, or fixed sash. Dormers are hipped or gabled. Eleven forms of houses at Bancroft Park have been identified, and are described in general terms here. It should be noted that some of the forms are seen in both the original group of fourteen houses (ca. 1896-1897) and the later group (ca. 1898-1903). Two forms have T-shaped footprints, three have U-shaped footprints, and six have rectangular footprints. All have symmetrical facades, though considerable variety in the elevations is achieved through a mix of gable, cross-gable, gambrel, or cross-gambrel roofed elements. The paired cross-gable roofline of 72-74 Bancroft Park (ca. 1898-1903) is unique in this subdivision. As a group, the houses have entries paired at the center of the façade, spaced more widely apart, or placed on the side elevations and shielded with porches. All houses have entry porches, either integral or projecting from the façade. Most porches have been enclosed. Traces of Queen Anne-inspired design are evident, such as the cut-away bays in houses of the same type, as 11-13 Bancroft Park (ca. 1898-1903), and the decorative half-timbering and bargeboards evident in the examples such as 59-61 Bancroft Park (ca. 1896-1897). As a whole, however, the subdivision is largely Colonial Revival in style, and encompasses the best collection of turn-of-the-century Colonial Revivals in Hopedale.
With the construction of Bancroft Park, the Draper Company began to amass a collection of stock plans that were reused in subsequent developments of employee houses. The Bancroft Park houses were designed by several architects under contract to the Draper firm: Edwin J. Lewis, Jr., J. Williams Beal, Walker & Kimball, and Peabody & Stearns, all of Boston, and Robert Allen Cook of Milford. Cook also supervised the construction of the inner-loop houses, which were completed and occupied by 1897, and tailored the plans of the outer-loop houses (ca. 1900-1903) to meet site plan requirements. As demonstrated in the Hopedale inventory, twenty-seven double houses built on Dutcher Street, Progress Street, Lake Street, Hope Street, Peace Street, Prospect Street and Union Street are similar in form to double house designs introduced at Bancroft Park.
The next area of concentrated double house development in Hopedale Village is the Lake Point Group (ca. 1910-1912). This subdivision of thirty-one double houses (sixty-two units total) covers Soward Street, Progress Street, and Lake Street, the latter occupying a small peninsula on the western shore of the millpond. Landscape architect Arthur Shurtleff designed the site plan for Lake Street, which is known to have existed on paper as early as 1904. (Garner, p. 157) The Lake Point Group includes at least two double houses that date to the 1890s. Progress Street, a curving roadway, is the primary artery through the area, providing two points of access from Freedom Street. The design of Lake Street and placement of houses there are particularly noteworthy. This curving roadway traces the periphery of the peninsula and houses are placed at the center, oriented toward the water. The siting of buildings here maximized the public access to the water and protected the shoreline by precluding any "back yard" conditions (e.g., hen houses, clotheslines, ash dumps, etc.) at the water's edge that could spoil the appearance of either the residential area or the pond.
The Hopedale inventory reports that with the exception of 1-3 and 5-7 Soward Street, most historic buildings in the Lake Point Group were built in ca. 1910-1912. The house at 1-3 Soward (ca. 1895) and 5-7 Soward (ca. 1895) revive a utilitarian design used in the early 1880s on neighboring Freedom Street. A similar, Colonial Revival-style variation of this side-gabled double house with rectangular footprint is elsewhere on the same street, at 2-4 Soward Street (ca. 1910-1912) and 6-8 Soward Street (ca. 1910-1912).
The double houses built ca. 1910-1912 are 2½ stories on a rubblestone foundation, with two chimneys, synthetic siding (usually asbestos shingle, covering original cypress shingles and often, half timbering), and windows containing 6/1, 6/6, casement, or fixed sash. Dormers are hipped or gabled. Fourteen forms of double houses have been identified in the Lake Point Group and are described in general terms here. One form has a T-shaped footprint, five have U-shaped footprints, and eight have rectangular footprints. All have symmetrical facades, though considerable variety in the elevations is achieved through a mix of gable, cross-gable, gambrel, or cross-gambrel roofed elements. Entries on these houses tend to be in one of three locations: paired at the center of the façade, spaced more widely apart in the end bays of the façade, or placed on the side-elevation and shielded with porches. All houses have entry porches, either integral of projecting from the façade. Most porches have been enclosed.
As shown in the Hopedale inventory, ten double houses in the Lake Point Group were built ca. 1910-1912 from eight designs apparently reused from the Bancroft Park development. They are 3-4 Lake Street, J. Williams Beal, architect, 7-8 Lake Street, Beal, 9-10 Lake Street, Edwin J. Lewis, Jr., architect, 17-18 Lake Street, Lewis, 15-16 Lake Street, Lewis, 17-18 Lake Street, Walker & Kimball, architect, 10-12 Progress Street, 14-16 Progress Street, 35-37 Progress Street, and 46 Progress Street/136 Freedom Street. These ten houses include most of the English Revival designs in the Lake Point development, retaining decorative bargeboards and half-timbering in the gable ends, bands of multi-pane or diamond pane window sash, and cut-away window bays.
The Lake Point Group introduced five new house forms to Hopedale between ca. 1910 and ca. 1912, as shown in the Hopedale inventory. Two forms, seen at 1-2 Lake Street, Peabody & Stearns, architect, and 11-12 Lake Street (ca. 1910-1912, Robert Allen Cook, architect) are multi-gabled buildings with U-shaped footprints reminiscent of the Queen Anne-inspired designs first seen at Bancroft Park. Three other house forms seen principally on Progress Street are Colonial Revival in style. These forms have rectangular footprints, symmetrical facades, and a pair of chimneys at the roof ridge. The form seen at 19-21 Progress Street and 30-32 Progress Street is somewhat unusual in Hopedale and features pedimented gable entry porches on the side (gable end) elevations; the porches are oriented parallel, rather than perpendicular to the street. The form seen at 26-28 Progress Street, 27-29 Progress Street, 34-36 Progress Street, 39-41 Progress Street and 42-44 Progress Street is very similar to the prototypes built ca. 1895 at 1-3 Soward and 5-7 Soward and in the 1880s on Freedom Street. Robert Allen Cook was likely involved in the construction, and probably also the design, of these houses. The most updated version of this house includes gabled projecting entry porches rather than the hipped porches of the earlier versions, paired windows on the first floor front on each unit rather than the single windows seen earlier, and on the side elevations, slight overhangs above the first floor and second floor. A variation of this form has the entries paired at the center of the façade under a hipped roof porch, as seen at 23-25 Progress Street, 38-40 Progress Street, and 43-45 Progress Street. The last double house form introduced in the Lake Point Group is a side gabled house with projecting cross-gambrel roof at the center of the façade, two bay windows below the gambrel, and entries in the side elevations. The entries have projecting porches with oversized gable roofs oriented parallel to the street, columned supports, and solid balustrades. This form is seen at 5-6 Lake Street.
All of the houses in the Lake Point Group, like those of Bancroft Park, were termed "first class" dwellings by the company, which implied the largest size of company-built, six-room house (1,500-1700 square feet per unit) and the highest grade of interior finishes. Plans for three of the Lake Point houses were published in The Architectural Review in 1916. J. Williams Beal designed a pair of houses with side hall plans as seen at 3-4 Lake Street, a plan that was reused from Bancroft Park. The side hall opened onto the parlor at the front outer corner of the house and the dining room at the center (with window on the side elevation) before ending in the kitchen occupying the rear of the house. Upstairs, two bedrooms were located side by side at the front of the house, the third bedroom occupied the rear outer corner, and the bathroom occupied the rear inner corner near the top of the stairs. Another design reused from Bancroft Park was 15-16 Lake Street. In this plan, architect Edwin J. Lewis, Jr. positioned the entry, entry porch, and hall on the side elevation of each house. The parlor, complete with a bay window, occupied the front outer corner of the house, the dining room occupied the front inner corner near the party wall, and the kitchen was at the rear. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms at the front of the house and one bedroom at the rear. The bathroom occupied the rear inner corner, next to the party wall. Finally, the house at 11-12 Lake Street, designed by Robert Allen Cook, introduced a new plan. Here, a stir hall positioned laterally with a dog-leg stair occupied the front outer corner or the house, behind the piazza or porch. The bay-windowed parlor occupied the front of the house next to the party wall with the dining room directly behind it, and the kitchen occupied the rear outer corner. On the second floor, there was a small room at the top of the stairs, plus one bedroom at the front, and two more bedrooms with a bathroom at the rear.
In addition to the Lake Point Group, the Draper Corporation built two other double house developments in the 1910s; the Upper Jones Group and the Lower Jones Group. Unlike the earlier house clusters, these two subdivisions were located farther from the Draper plant, to the northeast and north, respectively. Buildings in both subdivisions are either Colonial Revival or English Revival in style. The Hopedale inventory shows that at least fourteen double houses built on Lower Jones Road, Inman Street, Northrop Street, Oak Street, Maple Street, Jones Road, Hope Street, and Cemetery Street are similar in form to house designs introduced in the Lake Point Group.
The Upper Jones Group (ca. 1913) is a subdivision of thirty-four double houses adjacent to the Milford town line. Landscape architect Arthur Shurtleff designed the site plan, solving the problem of situating houses on what may be considered the steepest gradient in the Hopedale Village. The site plan radiates north, west, and south from the intersection of four streets: Freedom Street and Williams Street, both existing roads into Milford; Northrop Street, improved with paving in 1907), and Jones Road, newly constructed for this subdivision. Two curving roads, Oak Street and Maple Street, break up the land and provide additional building lots east and west of Jones Road. Architect Robert Allen Cook designed at least seven of the twelve new designs introduced with the construction of the Upper Jones Group.
All historic buildings in the Upper Jones Group were built ca. 1913. All houses are 2 ½ stories on a rubblestone foundation, with two chimneys, synthetic siding (usually asbestos shingle, covering original cedar shingle and often, half-timbering), and windows containing 6/1, 6/6, casement, or fixed sash. Dormers are hipped or gabled. Fifteen forms of double houses have been identified in the Upper Jones Group and are described in general terms here. Three forms have a T-shaped footprint, one has a U-shaped footprint, ten have rectangular footprints, and one has a roughly L-shaped footprint. All have symmetrical facades, though considerable variety in the elevations is achieved through a mix of gable, cross-gable, gambrel, or cross-gambrel roofed elements. Main blocks are usually four bays by two bays. Two types of roof forms, seen for the first time in Hopedale in the houses of this subdivision, are the clipped gable (or jerkin-head) roof and a modified gable-on-hip roof. The clipped gable roof, though typically a feature of Colonial Revival-style buildings, is here seen on English Revival-style double houses. The modified gable-on-hip roof is essentially a side-gabled house in which a small pent roof closes the gable on the side elevations. Entries on the Upper Jones houses tend to be in one of three locations: paired at the center of the façade, spaced more widely apart in the end bays of the façade, or placed on the side elevations and shielded with porches. All houses have entry porches, either integral or projecting from the façade. Most porches have been enclosed. More information is needed on interior plans.
Three double house forms present in the Upper Jones Group are slight modifications of forms introduced in earlier developments. The design at 19-21 Oak Street is rectangular in footprint, with a steeply pitched, asymmetrical, side-gable roof (also described as a ?reverse saltbox?), prominent cross-gambrel element centered on the façade, and end-bay entries beneath integral porches. This design is a variation of a cross-gambrel house form seen at Bancroft Park. In addition, according to the Hopedale inventory, two house forms in the Upper Jones Group were seen in the earlier Lake Point development. One example is the house at 35-37 Northrop Street, with its multi-gabled roof suggestive of earlier Queen Anne-inspired forms. In another example, 9-11 Maple Street, the cross-gambrel design with prominent center gambrel and bay windows below, is decidedly Colonial Revival.
Robert Allen Cook designed at least eight of the twelve house designs utilized in the Upper Jones Group. These designs were known as Cook's Designs A, B, C, E, L, M, N, and O. Designs A, B, D, and E were considered "second class" dwellings, five or six-room houses with a total floor area ranging from 1,200 to 1,360 square feet per unit. Interior wood trim was generally stained and varnished, and walls were papered. Design A, seen at 14-16 Oak Street, features a side-gabled roof with clip gable, overhanging eaves, and bargeboards and half-timbering in the gable ends of the main block, dormers, and porches. In plan, it is a six-room house (three bedrooms) with a dog-leg stair in the stair hall located at the front outer corner. Design B is a cross-gable form with overhanging eaves, bargeboards, hip-roofed entry porches on the side elevations, and a slight overhang of the second story. An example is 15-17 Oak Street, a six-room house (three bedrooms) with a dog-leg stair located at the rear outer corner.
Cook designs L, M, N, and O were considered "third class" dwellings, with five or six-room houses having a total floor area ranging from 1,100 t0 1,357 square feet per unit. In six-room houses of this type, the plan was arranged so that one first floor room could be used as either a dining room or a bedroom. Interior wood finishes were left in a natural state or painted, rather than stained and varnished as in the "second class" dwellings. The comparatively unusual corner house at 24 Freedom Street and Northrop Street combines two Cook designs, Design C for the unit at the south side of the house, and Design D for the unit on the north side. Both units are five-room houses. Design L also is a clipped gable house, with a projecting cross-gable centered on the façade and entries beneath gabled porches in the end bays; an example is 117-119 Jones Road. Designs M and N are similar to one another from the exterior, and also have clipped gable roofs and half-timbering in the gable ends. These houses, however, have projecting hipped porches over the entries. In Design M, exemplified by 105-107 Jones Road, the clipped gable end is the central feature of the façade, flanked by entries on the long side elevations. Here, the houses have five-room plans, wherein the living rooom occupies the front of the house, the kitchen occupies the rear, and the stair hall is positioned laterally between them with an entry on the side elevation of the house. In Design N, represented by 106-108 Jones Road, the long elevation is the façade, where the entries are paired at the center. This design also is a five-room house, with three bedrooms upstairs. Finally, Design O is a side-gambrel form with projecting cross-gable center on the façade. Here, however, entries are located on the side elevations beneath shed-roofed porches. Design O is a five-room house as well.
At least thirteen double houses built on Freedom Street, Northrop Street, Inman Street, Lower Jones Road, and Hope Street are similar in form to designs introduced in the Upper Jones Group. A majority of these similar houses are located in the Lower Jones Group (1913-1916), which was developed at the same time as the Upper Jones Group. On Inman Street, there is one house of the Cook Design A plan, 49-51 Inman Street (ca. 1913) and three houses of Cook Design L plan, at 14-16 Inman (ca. 1916), 33-35 Inman (ca. 1916), and 45-47 Inman (ca. 1913). At least five other houses in the same area also resemble double houses in the Upper Jones Group.
The Lower Jones Group is a subdivision of twenty-four houses (forty-eight units) on a ridge parallel to and immediately east of Dutcher Street. The northernmost development of double houses in the village and the town, this subdivision covers Inman Street and Lower Jones Road. No landscape architect has been identified to date, and the layout of the streets in a simple grid suggests that a landscape architect was not involved in this project. The architect for the five new house forms introduced in this subdivision has not been identified.
The Hopedale inventory shows that each historic building in the Lower Jones Group was built either ca. 1913 or ca. 1916. All houses are 2½ stories on a rubblestone foundation, with two chimneys. Originally clad in cedar shingles wit cedar trim, the houses were covered with asbestos shingles in the 1940s or early 1950s by the Draper Corporation. Windows contain 6/1, 6/6, casement, or fixed sash. Dormers are hipped, gabled, or shed-roofed. All together, eleven forms of houses have been identified in the Lower Jones Group and are described in general terms here. One form has a T-shaped footprint, one has an L- shaped footprint, and nine have rectangular footprints. All except the houses on corner lots have symmetrical facades. Main blocks range from four to five bays by two bays to six by two bays; this development introduces some dew house forms with facades that are much broader than what was seen previously.
The presence of various roof types lends variety to the subdivision, with cross-gable and cross-gambrel roofs predominating. The clipped gable (jerkin head) and gable- on-hip rooflines introduced in the Upper Jones Group development also are seen here. Particularly noteworthy, however, are three new rooflines not seen previously: the Prairie-like hipped roof with wide overhanging eaves, seen at 10-12 Inman Street (ca. 1916); the hipped roof with paired projecting gables, wide overhanging eaves, and oversized brackets on the façade, seen at 38-40 Inman Street (ca. 1916) and elsewhere. Entries on these houses tend to be in one of two locations; spaced more widely apart in the end byas of the façade or placed on the side elevations and shielded with porches. The house at 5-7 Inman Street (ca. 1916) is the one form in this development with entries paired at the center. All houses have entry porches, either integral or projecting from the façade. Most porches have been enclosed.
The Lower Jones Group is the last double house development constructed in Hopedale Village. Five new house forms were introduced her, among them the L-shaped, cross-gambrel, Colonial Revival-style form seen on the following corner lots: 4 Inman-4Beech, 26 Inman-5 Elm Street, and 32 Inman-6 Elm Street. This form displays a single brick chimney at the juncture of the two wings, oversized shed dormers, and hip-roofed porches at the entries on the gambrel ends. Similar examples exist on Dutcher Street.
Other early 20th-century double house forms were introduced in Hopedale Village beyond those in the developments described above. Dutcher Street northwest of Northrop Street, a tree-lined avenue with a mix of single-family and double houses, displays the best collection of double house forms not seen in the four double house developments. Preservation Services, Inc. assigned a date of ca. 1910 to these double houses. Constructed about the same time as the Upper Jones Group and the Lower Jones Group, these houses are generally Colonial Revival in style, 2½ stories on rubblestone foundations, with asbestos or vinyl replacement siding. Entries tend to be located in the end bays, with integral or projecting porches. Historic window sash, where it survives, is generally 2/1 or 6/1 wood.
Like the other Hopedale double house forms, these early 20th-century houses have symmetrical facades, though in some cases the facades are much wider than what is seen elsewhere in the village. A discussion of four forms follows. Each unit in the house at 131-133 Dutcher Street is four bays across, resulting in and eight-bay façade. Paired gambrels oriented to the street are over bays 1 to 3 and bays 6 to 8. There is a hipped-roof connector over the two center bays. Entries are located between bays 3 and 4 and bays 5 and 6. Box bay windows with shed roofs on the façade, pent roofs over the second-story façade windows, and hipped dormers at the attic are typical features of the Colonial Revival style. Variations include the cross-gambrel double house with central cross-gambrel as seen at 5-7 Hope Street, 123-125 Dutcher Street, and elsewhere; these examples have projecting hip-roofed porches with entries set perpendicular to the street in a central enclosed bay. Another Colonial Revival double house form is the side-gambrel seen at 76-78 Dutcher Street and 173-175 Dutcher Street. The six-bay by three bay double house has two brick chimneys at the roof ridge; massive cross-gabled bays overhanging the first floor; single, paired, and tripartite windows on the façade; and entry bays in the side elevations with shed-roof porches. Originally, there were decorative brackets beneath the overhanging gabled bays.
A wide façade and more complicated roofline is seen at 80-82 Dutcher Street. Each unit is roughly three bays across and two bays deep. The two-bay main block has two chimneys and a steeply pitched, side-gable roof with flared eaves. Similar rooflines are seen on the gabled dormers. Two-story lateral wings, each about two bays across and including a double house entry in the inner bay, have gable-on-hip roofs, shed dormers, and shed-roofed projecting porches, now enclosed. Other fenestration includes tripartite windows on the first floor of the main block for each unit, and bay windows supported by oversized brackets above. Similar brackets appear at the porch entrances. Its steeply pitched, gable-front roof, with long slopes sweeping to first floor integral porches characterizes the double hours from seen at 177-179 Dutcher Street and 96-98 Dutcher Street. This type features a pair of two-tiered bay windows centered on the façade, overhangs on the upper stories, cross-gabled projections on the side elevations with cup-away bays on the first floor, and shed dormers.
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