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Early Residence
Early Residence
ca. 1844
c. 1979 c. 1995
Building History
The urban row house was a common early-nineteenth century housing form that was not used in Lowell exclusively for mill boardinghouses. In areas of dense development near the mills and downtown commercial district, single-family townhouses were built in blocks on several streets. The Brown, Fay, and Watson Houses (aka Early Residence) is the best preserved of the four surviving blocks of such row houses in the city.
These three-bay brick town houses of Greek Revival-style design were probably built together in 1844 and are named from left to right for their earliest known occupants. All three units probably all terminated in one-story wood frame kitchens, as the corner unit still does. Through the years, additions to the original structure included a mansard roof that replaced the corner unit’s original gable roof as well as a first floor bay window and covered porch for the middle unit.
Preservation and Reuse
The building had become extremely dilapidated by the late 1980s by the time it had been acquired by the Lowell Five Cent Savings Bank for office use. In 1989, the bank painstakingly and very accurately restored the building to its original appearance. Much unseen structural work was performed on the walls and the altered roof was reframed and slated. Extensive masonry reconstruction was carried out and historically accurate doors, windows, and shutters were made.
In addition, in a rare local case of historically accurate interior work, the ground floor rooms of the corner house were restored to their original appearance as well.