The two 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 Storehouse C. The skylights are recent construction (1989) that successfully relates to the former use of the building.

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 on the west end of the property. The current drive between was a pass though as the second floors and roofs connected. The attic space was for wool storage. The second floor held three rooms, the east end 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 smaller one story building on the south side and now joined to Suite 7-10 was the mill Smithy building that began as one large room and was later doubled in size. It does not appear on the 1848 map but is included here in 1884.

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 most likely separated the two ends of the building. These buildings were sold to John S. & Claire E. Hamel on May 4, 1964. The Essex Savings Bank of Lawrence held the mortgage deed and later sold the property back to Lincoln Giles in April 1966. Giles then sold to Visual Plus, Inc on April 10, 1967. The Essex Broadway Savings Bank foreclosed in Dec. 1972 and the mtg. deed was then sold to Barry Wilson on July 6, 1973.

John R. Berman trustee of the Olde Mill Trust purchased this property from Wilson on April 7, 1982. Berman then created the Mill Stream Condominium creating four business units or Suites in the west building and Suites 7, 8, 9, & 10 in these joined buildings.