For Elegant Watch Hill, New Faces on the Scene

FOR more than a century, the elegant seaside community of Watch Hill beckoned a select group of wealthy families, who traveled by steamer and train to their Victorian-style cottages from New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati and other bases of industry.

Life in Watch Hill revolved around golf and tennis at the Misquamicut Club, bathing and yachting at the Watch Hill Yacht Club and tea and cocktails at Ocean House and Watch Hill's other grand hotels.

''It was a closed community,'' said Nancy Richmond, whose family has summered in Watch Hill for five generations.

Watch Hill was a place where everyone knew everyone, a somewhat staid and family-oriented community compared to glittering Newport, Rhode Island's other, more famous summer colony.

But times are changing. Even in Watch Hill.

After hanging onto their homes for decades, several Watch Hill families have decided in recent years to sell their ''cottages'' -- spacious homes that range in price from $250,000 to $3.5 million and often have 10 bedrooms or more. At the same time, a buoyant stock market has financed a new class of buyers, who find Watch Hill affordable compared with the Hamptons.

The result has been a vibrant Watch Hill real estate market in the last two years. Last summer, more than 20 of the 300 or so spacious houses sold. This year, the market is just as strong, said Claus Rossin of Buffum & Rossin Realty, an affiliate of Sotheby's that specializes in Watch Hill listings.

These new buyers are changing the fabric of life in Watch Hill.

''It has opened up Watch Hill to a whole new crowd of people,'' observed Ms. Richmond, who has been selling real estate in the area for more than a decade. This new crowd is more cosmopolitan than the families of old and less dependent on the private clubs for their social scene, she said.

Perched on Rhode Island's southernmost tip, Watch Hill is one of a string of summer colonies that line the state's South County shore. Others include Weekapaug, a community similar in style and price to Watch Hill; Shelter Harbor, Misquamicut and Quonochontaug. (Fans of the ''X Files'' television series know Quonochontaug as the summer home of Agent Mulder's mother.)

About 50 miles south of Providence, 13 miles across Block Island Sound from Block Island and about 140 miles from New York City, Watch Hill is one of several distinct neighborhoods in the larger town of Westerly, an old mill village on the banks of the Pawcatuck River. But it is unquestionably Westerly's most famous neighborhood, a picturesque enclave of winding, hilly streets with notable landmarks like the 1916 Olympia Tea Room, famous for its lobster salad rolls, and the 1880's Flying Horse outdoor carousel.

Then there's the Ocean House, one of the last of several Victorian-style hotels built in Watch Hill after the Civil War. A massive yellow building with a sweeping oceanfront veranda, the Ocean House conjures up another age, when women wore white gloves to tea and golf was a newfangled pastime.

Mr. Rossin called Watch Hill ''a yachtsman's paradise, a quaint village with a beautiful harbor and beautiful beaches.''

IN many respects, the Ocean House illustrates the changes wafting over Watch Hill. After owning the seven-story hotel for 60 years, earlier this year the April family decided to put it on the market. The asking price is $7.5 million.

Asked to explain her family's decision, Carol April said merely, ''It is time.''

But, in fact, the April family found themselves in the same position many Watch Hill residents did in the 1980's. After summering in Watch Hill for decades, and sometimes paying little attention to the maintenance of their cottages, these families woke up one day to find themselves in houses that were too big for them and which, while charming, required a lot of work.

This is what happened to Ms. Richmond. She inherited her grandmother's home on the bluffs in the 80's. At that time, it was just her and her son and the 10 or so bedrooms were ''a bit much for the two of us,'' she said. So in 1987, Ms. Richmond sold the house for $1.8 million, becoming not only one of the first of the old guard to sell, but also one of the first sellers in Watch Hill to see a startling appreciation in property value.

''I was thinking maybe I could get $500,000 for it,'' Ms. Richmond.

When she got more than three times that, ''My teeth nearly fell out,'' she said.

And so it began, the gradual change of ownership of an historic seaside colony.

Since 1960, Wayne Cottage has been in the family of Toby Beavers, a Manhattan nightclub owner. Built in 1898 by J. Stark Wayne, a tobacco plantation owner, it was the perfect place to spend summers as a boy, said Mr. Beavers.

''It was fabulous,'' said Mr. Beavers, who owned the now defunct Surf Club on the Upper East Side. But the Beaverses, like several other Watch Hill families, have decided it's time to sell the summer cottage.

MR. BEAVERS and his family share the house with a brother and his family. Since they rent it out in the summer to help pay the bills, they are not getting enough use of the house to make ownership worthwhile.

The nine-bedroom Wayne Cottage is now on the market with an asking price $995,000.

Mr. Rossin said that, because of its uniqueness, the Watch Hill market is ''never really dead.'' But he and other agents conceded that after the boom of the 80's went bust at the end of the decade, there were a few very flat years in Watch Hill. Then the economy improved and the market came back.

''It's really hot,'' said Paul Klotz, a developer who is building a cluster subdivision, New Bottom Pond, on 120 acres in Avondale, a neighborhood bordering Watch Hill. Two years ago, he said, there were more than 30 properties for sale in Watch Hill. Now they are almost all sold, he added.

The new buyers are different from the old owners in that many of them are winterizing their homes with plans to use them not only in the summertime, but also on weekends throughout the year, Mr. Rossin and other agents said. Although some people find Watch Hill isolated in the wintertime, others find the quiet peaceful.

''It's a big beautiful world that's all yours,'' said Mr. Klotz, who has lived year-round in Avondale for 29 years.

The broader community of Westerly is, itself, beginning to see some change. Insulated and moribund since the late 1940's, when the town's historic downtown lost much of its life to the suburbs, Westerly has recently shown more signs of life.

In the last year, a group of developers transformed the landmark old McCormick's department store into a mixed use residential/retail complex. Westerly's historic Spanish-style Amtrak station on the edge of the downtown is to get a $1.5 million restoration. And thanks to downtown Westerly's proximity to Foxwoods Resort Casino, which is only 10 miles away, the town's apartment market has rebounded.

''Before Foxwoods opened $(in 1992$), the rental market was about 50 percent vacant and now it's full,'' Mr. Klotz said.

The Mashantucket Pequot Indian tribe owns Foxwoods, one of the world's largest and most profitable casinos. Although some people in Westerly and southeastern Connecticut are wary, if not critical, of the tribe's growing economic clout in the region, Mr. Klotz is not among them.

''They got money circulating in the region again and we had no money circulating,'' he said, referring to the fact that the area was hit both by the recession and cutbacks in the nation's military budget.

But here the noise and glitz of the casino seem a million miles away. Which is, of course, one of the reasons a new set of buyers are flocking to this seaside community.

''A lot of new blood is coming into Watch Hill,'' said Ms. Richmond. ''I think it's healthy.''