Coles River Club, Inc.: 2013

Friday, September 27, 2013

Providence Journal Neighborhood of the Week

This Swansea neighborhood was once home to an amusement park

Published: September 22, 2013

Mary Murphy/The Providence Journal

Neighborhood of the Week: A home on Seaview Avenue in the leafy waterfront Cole's River Club neighborhood in the Touisset section of Swansea and Warren.

By CHRISTINE DUNN

Journal Staff Writer

cdunn@providencejournal.com

SWANSEA, Mass. — The Coles River Club is a neighborhood association formed in the early 1920s in a leafy, secluded spot in Touisset, at the border with Warren, R.I.

In 1667, the Town of Swansea included present-day Warren, Barrington and Somerset. The Cole River was named for Hugh Cole, an early settler of the area.

There are only two main streets in the Coles River Club, and both run north and south: Touisset Avenue and Seaview Avenue. Davis and Todd streets are two short connector roads that link Touisset and Seaview.

Like Touisset and Seaview avenues, Touisset Road, which leads to Touisset Point in Warren, shoots off Barton Avenue, which has sections in both Warren and Swansea. Seaview Avenue is longer than Touisset Avenue, and it extends south past the Warren line. Though it is not connected to Maple Road in Warren, Seaview Avenue ends at a spot close to that road.

The Coles River Club has a president and board of directors, and members pay dues to maintain the club’s common areas, which include four tennis courts at the end of Touisset Avenue and the John W. Place Landing on Seaview Avenue, a waterfront park with a dock and rack storage for small boats. In the summer, a tent is set up on the park lawn, along with picnic tables, for neighborhood get-togethers.

On Sept. 8, association members worked to take the tent down and put the tables away for the season. On the night of Friday, Sept. 6, there was a more enjoyable event, a neighborhood memories night, when people shared photos and other memorabilia from the past.

On Sept. 15, yet another neighborhood event was planned: the second annual Touisset Trot, a 5K run/walk to benefit ALS research, a joint effort of the Coles River Club and the Touisset Point Club.

Jim Goff, whose grandfather was one of the founders of the Coles River Club, said the neighborhood is a close-knit one, and the association is “very active.”

Goff said his grandfather, who owned a building materials company in Providence, bought eights lots in the neighborhood in 1905, and today, several branches of the family live on this land. He said his grandfather built three houses there, one for himself, one for his grandmother, and one for his daughter. The first six summer houses in the neighborhood were built in 1905 and 1906, he said.

In addition to the Goffs, the Borden family of Fall River was another founding family of the Coles River Club, he said. But Goff said his aunt was the first person to spend the winter there, in 1926.

Before the neighborhood was developed with summer houses, it was the site of an amusement park, Goff said, and a railroad that brought passengers from the city. There was an ice cream store near the train station, he said. The area was also once home to a fish-processing plant, and it was “so smelly, no one wanted to live near it,” he added.

Today, the neighborhood is a quiet residential enclave with mature trees and little traffic, since both of the main streets are dead-ends. There are about 175 members of the Coles River Club.

There were just three houses recently listed for sale in the neighborhood. Real-estate prices, as well as local property taxes, tend to be high on the riverfront side of Seaview Avenue. A number of houses on Seaview also have their own private docks. When lots were first sold on Seaview, many families bought a waterfront lot for a house and a lot across the street for a garage, Goff said.

A hip-roof Colonial built in 1943 at 124 Seaview Ave. is listed for $539,000; it includes a 2,606-square-foot house and a two-car garage across the street on a separate lot, according to the listing information. A newer house at 82 Touisset Ave., built in 2001, with four bedrooms and three full bathrooms, and an in-ground pool, was priced at $414,900.

A house built in 1908 at 78 Seaview Ave., with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a wraparound porch, was listed for $389,000.

POPULATION: (Swansea, 2010) 15,865

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE: (Swansea, 2012) $205,000

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Yard Sale Update

We still have space at the neighborhood yard sale on Saturday. We will be using the picnic tables and providing plenty of space between them for "extra stuff" that does not fit on top or on the benches. Tables will be $5 each all the way up through Saturday. Please call Merideth Ekwall to reserve so that we can set out enough tables ... and so that there is enough coffee ready on Saturday morning!