Poinsett Lumber and Manufacturing Company Manager’s House (Singer House)

This house was built for Alfred Carlson, plant manager of the Poinsett Lumber and Manufacturing Company (PL&M), and his wife, Golda. The house faced the mill across Poinsett Avenue, allowing the manager to easily monitor activity at the mill. In the 1880s the completion of a spur line of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad to Trumann had helped transform a small village into a lumber town, and a mill was in operation by 1894. In 1903, the Singer Manufacturing Company acquired that mill (wood was used for sewing machine bases and covers), and in 1911 Singer’s subsidiary, the PL&M, began milling rough lumber from timber cut on Singer holdings located in nearby Cross and Lee counties and supplying veneer to other Singer facilities. Phillips’s T-shaped Tudor Revival house is a picturesque arrangement of stone, patterned brickwork, variously shaped gables, half-timbering, and casement windows. The house is set back from the street on three acres, and the grounds include faux bois (false wood) benches, chairs, and a bar, all of which may be the work of Dionicio Rodriguez, who created works (PU57) in North Little Rock.