Many houses in Avondale were once homes to sea captains. A broad lawn and lush trees frame this house at 56 Avondale Rd. The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

Avondale, a Westerly neighborhood that borders the Pawcatuck River, is not as famous as Watch Hill, its more glamorous neighbor to the south. But some prefer Avondale’s quieter, greener elegance, marked by historic houses — many once home to sea captains — mature trees, and low stone walls.

Unlike Watch Hill, Avondale is not a mecca for tourists, and it has no retail center, carousel or popular ocean beach. There are many gracious houses in Avondale, but in general they do not match the size and grandeur of the hilltop mansions of Watch Hill.

“Avondale is sort of a spillover area, when you can’t quite afford Watch Hill,” said real estate agent Gayward Hatch, who lives in Avondale and works for Seaboard Properties, an agency in nearby Stonington, Conn. Hatch lives on Champlin Drive, which, he joked, is the “Levittown of Avondale,” a wide 1950s subdivision street located off historic, narrow, winding Avondale Road. Hatch said houses on the left side of Champlin each have about an acre fronting Colonel Willie Cove.

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Compared to Watch Hill, Avondale may seem like a bargain, but it is certainly not the cheap seats: Around the corner from Hatch’s house, at 117 Avondale, is one of his listings: a ranch-style house priced at $1.495 million.

As a landmark stone marker near Avondale Road proclaims, this village, the original seaport for the Westerly area, was founded in 1750 as Lotteryville, “so named from the 1750 land lottery granted by the Rhode Island Assembly to Capt. Joseph Pendleton to recoup the loss of his brigantine and its cargo on a return voyage from the West Indies.”

“On these shores Captain George Potter’s company stored ready to repel the British in 1814,” the marker ads.

Renamed Avondale in 1893, the village has most recently repelled development of a former dairy farm, a 50-acre site now known as the Avondale Farm Preserve, into high-priced housing. The Westerly Land Trust bought the parcel to be saved as open space for $1.8 million.

Today, that would be considered a bargain price. Hatch said that about three years ago, two acres in Avondale with three houses, the former Glendon family compound, was sold for $3.2 million.

Last week, there were just four properties on the market in Avondale, with prices starting at $424,900 for a raised ranch built in 1974 at 14 Shore Rd.; the house has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and 2,230 square feet. From there, asking prices jump to over $1 million: a 1990 contemporary, at 105 Watch Hill Rd., is on the market at $1.19 million; 116 Avondale Rd. has an asking price of $1.29 million, and a 1956 Colonial Cape, at 41 Avondale Rd., is for sale at $2.675 million.

In Westerly, even these numbers are dwarfed by the price tags on Watch Hill, where an oceanfront estate at 7 Niantic Ave. was on the market last week at $23.5 million.

Still, “Avondale is getting awfully expensive,” Hatch said. “There’s nothing really economical about it now.”

POPULATION:

(Westerly, 2000) 22,966

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE:

(Westerly, 2007) $349,900

INTERESTING FACT: The Lotteryville Marina at 25 Avondale Rd. is the oldest small family-run marina in the United States, and since 1749 it has been continually owned and operated by descendants of Capt. Joseph Pendleton, according to the current owner, Capt. Roger Hall.

cdunn@projo.com