Home Woolen Co. Housing | Making Places

Mill Community Record Beacon Falls

Community Name (Common)

Home Woolen Co. Housing

Address or Location

2 North Main Street, Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Co. worker subdivision, Beacon Falls

Specific Location

North of the Home Woolen Company mill near the intersection of North Main Street (CT Route 852) and Burton Road in Beacon Falls, Connecticut. Including a neighborhood bounded by North Main Street, Barton Road, Highland Avenue, and Beacon Street.
The working housing subdivision was planned by Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects in 1915 at the request of the owner of the Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Co.

From Preservation Connecticut News Sept/Oct 2022:

"Connecticut’s Olmsted Heritage
Worker subdivision: Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Company
In addition to plans for parks and grounds for public buildings, the Olmsted firm designed residential landscapes. Some were very grand, such as the Scoville estate in Salisbury or Waveny in New Canaan. But they also included more modest properties, as well as subdivisions. In Connecticut, those included the high-end Greenwich community of Khakum Wood, as well as a development of worker housing for the Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Company.
Founded by George A. Lewis and later headed by his son, Tracy S. Lewis, the Beacon Falls Rubber Shoe Company made shoes for activities including sports, yachting, track and field, even dancing. As the company grew, there wasn’t enough housing in Beacon Falls for the company’s employees, and many commuted from other places. To encourage in-town living, the company hired Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects in 1915 to devise a plan for housing.
Tracy Lewis envisioned a village-like feel for the new community on the hilltop, overlooking but separate from the commercial and industrial areas along Main Street. The steep hill, a deterrent to prior development, became a design element in the landscape, with carefully designed roads undulating and curving to follow contours of the land—note the contrasts between the straight lines of Wolfe Avenue, Maple Avenue, and Highland Avenue, begun before the subdivision, and the winding roads laid out by the Olmsted firm.
The curves in the roads frame views and suggest paths for travel. Discussing his plan for Riverside, Illinois, in 1868, Frederick Law Olmsted set out the design principles that the firm used nearly fifty years later at Beacon Falls: “gracefully-curved lines, generous spaces, and the absence of sharp corners, the idea being to suggest and imply leisure, contemplativeness and happy tranquility.”
To see this, go to the intersection of Maple Avenue and Burton Road, where stone steps and a grove of trees draw the viewer's eye leftward, towards the school (now town hall) and the heart of the village.
Another intersection that originally had this visual element was at South Circle and Maple Avenue, but with the view towards the rocky ledge and wooded ridgeline. A copse of trees in the road island has since been lost, so the visual cue is no longer as obvious.
Where topography was particularly steep, the landscape architects called for fieldstone retaining walls, their rustic appearance, blending in with the landscape. The firm even provided sample designs for houses (not built), to suggest proportions and materials that would complement the landscape, as well as trellises, foundations, and plantings that would connect the built environment with the natural one.
Tracy Lewis built his own house in the new neighborhood, facing the proposed park. Olmsted Brothers provided a separate landscape design for the house, but that appears not to have been executed, and the house was demolished in 2021. The park was built, but little if anything remains or its original landscape.
Beacon Falls is an example of the planning projects that the Olmsted firm increasingly undertook in the 20th century. Worker housing may seem a utilitarian project for a nationally prominent firm to undertake, but the work here expresses the Beacon Falls Company’s values, affirming the worth of workers and the need to provide decent housing for all members of society.

The Beacon Falls Rubber Company subdivision is found on Burton Road, Wolfe, Maple and Highland avenues, and North and South circles in Beacon Falls. More information can be found at OlmstedOnline.org, posted under job 06222. Information here also comes from the Olmsted Legacy Trail, olmstedlegacytrail.com."

County

New Haven

Historic Designation

n/a

Associated Mill Complexes

Home Woolen Co.

Architectural and Historical Information

Number of Existing Buildings

At least 50.

Dates of Construction

Mid 19th through early 20th c.

Housing Types

Brief Description

Potentially associated with the Home Woolen Co. (#1210) mill. Includes wood-frame single- and multi-family residences located on North Main Street, Wolfe Avenue, Century Avenue, Division Street, South Circle, North Circle, Barton Road, Highland Avenue, Church Street, and Beacon Street. Of particular note are a cluster of four nearly identical front-gabled wood-framed residences on North Main Street a short distance north of the mill. A number of other designs are also repeated at various locations throughout the area.