Hatherly Painters — Rockland's north end

According to the Rockland Historic Commission, the first settlers here bought land as the Hatherly Grant was sold off. That nine-square-mile tract was deeded to merchant-adventurer Timothy Hatherly and others in 1656, and it took in two-thirds of what is now Rockland. The northern end of town still carries his name. A marker for the grant sits in swampy acreage off North Union Street, on private land, so the commission suggests waiting for a tour. The name nearly went further: in the 1874 vote on what to call the new town, 69 residents picked Hatherly, and in 1886 Rockland adopted the Hatherly family coat of arms as its seal.

Hatherly has no official boundary, and no historic district is documented for it. Rockland's one National Register district, on Lower Union Street, lies downtown, not here. What is documented is the housing count, so the rest of this page works from Census figures.

Census Tract 5022 covers Rockland's north end. It holds 2,589 housing units: 32.0% were built in 1939 or earlier, 20.5% in the 1980s, and 67.1% before 1980, with a median year built of 1964. Detached single-family houses account for 55.3% of units, attached single-family homes for 15.3%, two-unit buildings for 12.9%, and mobile homes for 11.7%. Owners occupy 84.8% of the occupied units. In Block Group 3, which includes Hatherly Road, 36.5% of the 945 units date from the 1980s and roughly a third are mobile homes. These smaller-area estimates carry wide margins of error.

Pre-1940 houses and lead rules

With 828 units in the tract built before 1940, a north-end house of that age may carry layers of lead paint inside and out. Federal EPA rules require certified firms and lead-safe practices for paid work that disturbs paint in housing built before 1978. That adds containment and specialized cleanup to the scraping. Our lead-safe painting page explains the steps.

The 1980s building wave

The 531 units from the 1980s make that the tract's largest decade after the pre-1940 group. Homes built after 1978 fall outside the federal lead rule, so prep there is about the condition of the existing coating: chalking, peeling at trim joints, and caulk that has dried out. For siding and trim work, see exterior painting in Rockland.

Townhouses and two-families

Attached homes and two-unit buildings together make up more than a quarter of the tract's units. If an association controls the outside of a townhouse, it may set the colors and the schedule and expect a certificate of insurance before work starts. On a two-family, the porches and stairs shared by both units have to be worked around both households. Our condo painting page covers the association side.

Manufactured homes

Block Group 3 contains all 304 of the tract's mobile homes. A manufactured home may be sided in metal or vinyl rather than wood, and each of those surfaces calls for its own cleaner, primer and topcoat. Where a home sits in a community with its own rules, the owner should check those rules before choosing a color.