These wood and brick buildings represent the past and the present. Now distinguished by suite numbers, the R.W. Electronics, Mill Stream Carriage House, Inc. and the Ballardvale Company were once the wool dry houses of the historic Ballard Vale Company and the Ballard Vale Mills, dating from 1836, and later known as Storehouses A, B & C. The two buildings on the property were later joined together most likely by C. Lincoln Giles in the 1960s.

The Franklin Darracott 1848 map of Ballard Vale Village and the properties of the Ballard Vale Machine Shop label this building as the Tenter House & Shed. A Tenter is "a framework upon which milled cloth is stretched for drying without shrinkage." A tenterhook is a hooked nail for securing cloth on a tenter hence the term "on tenterhooks", a state of uneasiness, suspense, or anxiety.

A map of the Ballard Vale Mills Co., surveyed March 21, 1912, labels this building as Building C. The structure was 200' long x 36' wide and was connected to the building at the west end of the property now Suites 1-4. The current drive between both buildings was a pass though and the second floor and roofs were connected. The attic space was for wool storage. The second floor held three rooms, the east end in this building stored wool, the long center room for drying wool, and the west end room for sorting. The main level contained weaving plain looms in the east end room, the pass through, then plain loom weaving and the west end room for finished goods.

The Ballard Vale Mills Company closed in 1926 and the property was then sold off. The main manufacturing complex was purchased by Northern Rubber Northern Rubber Company on Sept. 29, 1927. The Ballard Vale Mills Co. however held the mortgage deed which was sold on Apr. 12, 1932 to Susan A. Hodgkins, widow of William H. Hodgkins, former Trustee of the J. Putnam Bradlee estate and President of the Bradlee Mills. Susan A. Hodgkins would foreclose on the company on Mar. 25, 1933.
Upon Susan A. Hodgkins death in 1937, her children Helen A. Kendall and Willis B. Hodkins were heirs to the estate. Warren C. & Helen A. Kendall, and Charles Wood Bond, were trustees of the estate. Warren C. Kendall purchased Son Willis 1/4 share on July 29, 1937.

Warren C. & Helen A. Kendall took a mortgage loan on Aug. 24, 1938 with the First National Bank of Boston. The bank foreclosed on the loan on Aug. 17, 1943. Wool Warehouse, Inc., Geo. L. Anderson Treas. then purchased the property on May 29, 1944. The wooden mill #2 on the east side of the river was then sold to the Shawsheen Rubber Co.

C. Lincoln Giles, and architect and developer then purchased the mill buildings on the west side of the river along with 18.73 acres on Aug. 25, 1961. Giles embraced the idea of rehabbing old buildings and converting them for business, retail and residential use. Giles would sub-divide the property and sold off the buildings as separate properties.
Giles probably connected this end of building C to the old brick one story "Smithy" building on the southside as labeled on the 1912 map of the mill complex. It does not appear on the 1848 map. On the 1884 map of Ballardvale Village the building is drawn in. A look at the construction reveals the Smithy was doubled in size at some point prior to 1884.