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
