Allaire eventually transformed the Howell Works into an almost completely self-sufficient community, with its own housing and food supply for the workforce, its own post office, church, school and company store, even its own currency.

[4][5] The purchase of the entire property was motivated by the availability of resources for iron-making as well as its proximity to a river passage to New York City.

[8] The basic workforce was divided into three different groups: Because of the area's isolation, Allaire realized he had to provide virtually all the facilities of a small town to satisfy the daily needs of his employees.

Consequently, he hired additional artisans: a blacksmith, carpenters, brickmakers to supply bricks for new buildings on the grounds, farmers to grow food and raise cattle, millers, bakers, butchers and so on.

Allaire began issuing his workers the scrip, which was redeemable at the company store on the grounds, as well as accepted as payment by businesses in the local area.

He established a stagecoach company that ran a freight-wagon line between Howell Works and his depot at Eatontown Dock (modern-day Oceanport).

To transport the pig iron from Red Bank to New York, Allaire purchased Cornelius Vanderbilt's steamer Bellona[13] and established the first regular steam packet service between the two localities.

[4] Other steamboats used by Allaire to transport goods and supplies to and from the Howell Works included the Frank, David Brown, Osiris, Iolas and Orus.

The Store also contained the Howell Works Post Office, an apothecary, and an early example of a soda fountain.

[17] A strong believer in education, Allaire did require the children of his employees to attend school, which he provided free of charge.

Lessons were held three days a week, from dawn to dusk, for children of both sexes between the ages of about five or six to eleven or twelve.

The Works had expanded to over sixty buildings, including a large three-storey charcoal depot storing charcoal, bog iron and flux; the company store and the church; a carriage house and stables; a bakery, gristmill and slaughterhouse; a blacksmith, carpentry shop and wheelwright; an enamelling furnace; numerous row houses for married employees; and finally Allaire's mansion, which included a dormitory wing for the Works bachelors, managed by a housekeeper.

His company manufactured items including pots, pans, skillets, kettles and other holloware; along with andirons, pipes, tools and machine castings.

[8] At the peak of Howell Works' production, however, Allaire's business empire suffered a series of financial and other setbacks from which it would never fully recover.

[22] Howell Works was rendered redundant by the discovery in the early 1830s of abundant deposits of iron ore and anthracite coal in the state of Pennsylvania.

[24] Hal Allaire lived as something of a recluse, leaving the property largely unchanged but lacking the funds to fully maintain it.

[8][28] In 1957, a group of locals established an organization for the restoration and maintenance of the old Howell Works Company site, which they renamed Allaire Village.

The non-profit organization, Allaire Village Inc., runs the historic site in conjunction with the State of New Jersey as a tourist and educational facility.