Stubby two-story wings project from the nearcubic core of this late Victorian house with Queen Anne detail. Porches fill in the L-shaped void made by the rear ell extension; in front, a lattice-skirted, unroofed deck, surrounded by an ornamental railing divided by a band of rectangles beneath a row of stubby balusters, ties the house to its sloping site. Against the side elevation, a roofed section shelters the entrance and shades the area for sitting. Topping this, a small outlook porch off an upstairs bedroom repeats a reduced version of the railing below. Turned supports and spindles, together with arched and diagonal bracing, complete this cascade of porching. In fact, they provide the principal adornment for what would otherwise be a quite plain clapboard house, thereby emphasizing these useful and decorative appendages as characteristically Victorian. The Allen House served a series of mill superintendents. Its pivotal location with respect to the mill and to workers' housing is almost precisely duplicated at the Brown and Ives mill at Berkeley in Cumberland ( CU8). It seems likely that the Hope Furnace was sited somewhere toward the rear of this property.