A lot has happened on Block Island in the 34 years since John R. "Rob" Lewis launched the battle for Rodman's Hollow.

Most of the farms are gone.

The fishing fleet is gone.

Hundreds of new houses have been built -- many so big that they detract from the beautiful scenery that attracted their owners to Block Island in the first place.

But much of the island still looks as it always has.

There are plenty of open pastures, sweeping views of the ocean and interesting hiking trails.

Visitors still jam the island's narrow roads on summer days. It is a beautiful place.

And while wealthy outsiders have dotted the island with expensive vacation homes, the 1,000 or so year-round residents aren't much different from the rest of Rhode Island. The average family income is only a few thousand dollars a year higher than the statewide average. Some islanders earn so little that they receive public assistance.

Actor Christopher Walken is probably the island's most famous resident. But the death of Adrian Mitchell's 16-year-old cow, Nellie, made the front page of The Block Island Times in February.

Last year many of the people who care passionately about Block Island gathered in a field on the north end for a celebration.

The group gazed out across pastures framed by stone walls and beyond the fields to seagulls flying over Middle Pond and to the horizon -- the shimmering blue-gray waters of Block Island Sound.

Together they had managed to buy this 24.8-acre piece of land to preserve in trust forever. This formal dedication of the Hodge property was part of what has become an annual event, Block Island Conservancy Day.

The price tag for the property was enough to keep First Warden Martha Ball awake one night after she had approved the purchase. Martha's mother, Luella Ball, had served on the original Block Island Conservancy board created by Rob Lewis, and Martha certainly shared his commitment to conservation. But this was the most expensive land sale in island history, and Ball was afraid people would complain that the $8.5 million she had agreed to was too much.

Local leaders gave speeches and hiked across the fields. Everyone seemed satisfied, like customers happily slamming the doors on a new car.

Then they headed to a restaurant for a party.

It had been a contentious year.

Taking advantage of a controversial Rhode Island law giving incentives for building affordable housing, developers had submitted proposals for 118 new condominiums in 3 projects. Only 25 of the units would actually be priced to be affordable.

A new high-speed ferry had started making five trips a day from New London, Conn., discharging even more tourists onto Old Harbor sidewalks that were already jammed on summer days.

Most alarming to the islanders, the owners of Champlin's Marina had applied to expand by building a half-mile of new piers into 4 acres of Great Salt Pond, the beautiful centerpiece of the island, a pond that many think is already overused in summer.

To most islanders, the events demonstrated that the battle never ends to preserve open space from outsiders trying to make a buck from Block Island's natural beauty.

A PARTY just then seemed like a great idea. Outside it was gray and wet. Inside there was warmth and friendship.

If someone were making a movie about Block Island's conservation campaign, this would be the place to start. Most of the people who had made serious contributions and were still alive attended. In some ways it resembled a corporate sales meeting -- applause followed every pronouncement. Except here, people were praised for saving rather than selling.

Doug Hoyt, head of the Block Island Conservancy, founded by Rob Lewis, praised the many groups that had worked together to buy the Hodge property:

• The Block Island Conservancy contributed $2 million.

• The Block Island Land Trust, created by Keith Lewis' legislation, gave $3.5 million.

• The town contributed $1 million.

• The Nature Conservancy gave about $2 million.

Scott Comings, science teacher at the Block Island School and associate director of The Nature Conservancy's Block Island program, reported that 60 acres had been protected in the preceding 12 months, which was about 1 percent of the island.

In 34 years, more than 40 percent of the island had been protected, Comings told the gathering.

The Block Island Times, the weekly newspaper, gave its annual Bayberry Wreath Award for efforts to conserve island land to Claire Costello, a lawyer and island resident who had helped create the Committee for Great Salt Pond and was actively battling the Champlin's expansion.

It was the 20th anniversary of the Bayberry awards, which were created by earlier publishers Peter Wood and his late wife, Shirley. The current publisher, R. Bruce Montgomery, used the occasion to present plaques to earlier recipients who had received only proclamations.

One at a time, people stepped forward:

The Lewis brothers, Keith and David.

Edith Littlefield Blane, who said, "On occasions like this I always think of Robbie Lewis. On days like this, he'd say, 'Just a little Block Island sunshine.' "

Dr. Gerry Abbott.

David Russo, who started the beach cleanups.

Elise Lapham, who was greeted with loud applause.

Adrian Mitchell, Dorothy McCluskey, Keith Lang, Merrill Slate.

Near the end of the gathering, David Lewis turned the tables on Peter Wood and gave him a Bayberry award for his two decades of work in educating and rallying people through his newspaper.

When the party was breaking up, the crowd was reminded to go to the next hearing on the Champlin's Marina expansion plan, the first to be held on the island so that residents could more easily attend.

TODAY EVERY proposed development on Block Island is closely scrutinized.

Martha Ball, first warden until last fall, says it's always the same story: trying to find a balance between development pressures and housing for year-round residents.

Ball says islanders were angered by the Champlin's expansion plans and the condo projects because the developers refused to compromise.

"These people could have done good things with these properties and still made lots of money," she said. "Instead, they are trying to take advantage of all the good things others did and they never helped."

Champlin's plans became public in early 2003. Champlin's is the biggest of three marinas on Great Salt Pond. Its massive, trident-shaped piers are a popular destination for owners of luxury yachts.

Ball said the plans to expand into 4 acres of public trust waters in the pond and to displace dozens of town moorings were so ambitious the Town Council didn't take them seriously at first.

"We thought they were going to come in with new plans. We asked them to work within the existing confines of the marina." Ball said. "But they wouldn't move."

The town asserted that an 1887 act of the General Assembly had given it control of the pond. But the Coastal Resources Management Council, the state agency that regulates most coastal activities, insisted it had jurisdiction. The two fought all the way to the state Supreme Court. The town lost.

That set the stage for a showdown in December 2003. Michael Tikoian, CRMC chairman, set aside an evening to hear testimony on the case, and both sides appeared with their witnesses. But the islanders had done their homework.

State Sen. Susan Sosnowski, a Democrat whose district includes Block Island, moved to refer the case to a subcommittee inquiry, which would take months. Four votes were needed.

Tikoian and others on the council argued against the referral. They wanted to hear the case that night.

But Lawrence W. Erhardt, of North Kingstown, voted for the subcommittee. Ron Gagnon, representing the Department of Environmental Management, backed Sosnowski. (Block Island had many friends at the DEM from the conservancy campaigns.) Finally, L. Neill Gray, of Newport, put the motion over the top.

The vote triggered a series of court-like hearings that seemed to go on forever, in part because Block Islanders sent so many lawyers.

Representing the marina was Robert D. Goldberg, a former state legislator, powerful lobbyist and husband of Supreme Court Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg. He was sharp, bombastic and often funny as he elicited testimony.

Each time Goldberg finished with a witness, the opposition took over. There was the town attorney, Donald J. Packer. He was followed by Joseph A. Priestley, of Westerly, for the Block Island Land Trust and the Block Island Conservancy; Daniel R. Prentiss, of Providence, for the Committee for Great Salt Pond; and Christopher D'Ovidio for the Conservation Law Foundation.

One night, former Attorney General James E. O'Neil got permission to sit on behalf of the Conservation Law Foundation. That put five opposition lawyers at the table. Each one was allowed to question the same witness.

The hearings slowly moved along through spring last year, alternating between the Narragansett and South Kingstown town halls. Some nights entire classes of University of Rhode Island marine affairs students attended. Every night some Block Islanders were there -- usually Martha Ball, Claire Costello and a few others.

The eighth hearing was scheduled for a Friday in mid-June on the island. It was an event.

Hundreds of Block Islanders, mostly older people, showed up with protest placards. They chanted "Save our Pond" and "Our Pond is Not a Potty."

They filled nearly every seat in the century-old Empire Theater, where live piano music is still played before movies. But they never got a chance to testify.

With frequent interruptions from roaring mopeds and airplanes outside, Goldberg continued presenting marina witnesses. At the end of the day, he was still going.

Subcommittee Chairman Paul E. Lemont suspended the hearings for the summer. They resumed in the fall and continued sporadically into this spring.

In April, Sosnowski volunteered to try to mediate a settlement. But Champlin's refused to attend. Lemont announced he was going to go ahead with more hearings, and somehow conclude the case by this summer.

THE AFFORDABLE housing projects also upset Block Islanders.

In a place where it's difficult to find any house selling for less than $1 million, Block Islanders have struggled to provide housing for year-round, working-class residents. The town government has built 47 units.

One private proposal to put 24 condominiums on less than 2 acres near the town school brought out about 120 people for a hearing on the evening before New Year's Eve 2003.

Seawinds Condominiums would include five units classified as affordable, the minimum required by a 2002 state law that lets developers fast-track their projects.

Block Islanders fired off questions during the hearing in the school gymnasium. Why add just 5 affordable units, with 19 selling at market rates?

When the state counted affordable units, why did it ignore the nine units the town built in its Old Harbor Meadow Project?

Why propose a project 10 to 12 times denser than surrounding properties? Why target such a narrow road?

David Igliozzi, a lawyer for the developers, met with other town boards in the following months, but the reception remained chilly.

With some of the units slated to sell for $725,000, town officials wanted to know how much profit the project would generate. Igliozzi said that was none of their business.

With similar projects triggering controversies in communities across Rhode Island, the state declared a moratorium while it enacted new legislation.

The developers of all three Block Island projects applied to the State Housing Appeals Board to have their applications designated as substantially complete, so that the island's Zoning Board would have to take them into consideration. The Zoning Board argued that all three projects were incomplete.

Last winter the state Housing Appeals Board sent the projects back to the town, saying it erred when it ruled the applications incomplete. The town appealed to the state Supreme Court, which has sought more information from the Housing Appeals Board. The board has lacked a quorum for months, so the cases have stalled.

Block Islanders have also been concerned about the growing number of visitors.

Ball said the town is frustrated because high-speed ferries from other states aren't regulated by the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission. The town has no way to raise objections.

"We don't want more boats. It's getting crazy out here," she said. She has a theory that people taking the older, slower ferries have time to adapt to the slower pace on the island. People getting off the high-speed ferries "still seem to be going fast."

This spring, the owners of the Block Island Ferry, who had opposed competing high-speed ferry services, asked the state for permission to operate their own high-speed ferry between the island and Newport.

Block Islanders have responded to the onslaught of outsiders by forming their own organizations and making lots of friends.

In the last 30 years, The Nature Conservancy has spent $44.6 million buying 128 properties on the island. The properties' fair market value when they were purchased added up to $77 million. The current values are many times that.

The Champlin Foundations began investing in Block Island by helping to buy the Lewis and the Dickens farms in 1983. Since then it has contributed $2.3 million, which was used to help buy $8.2 million worth of land.

The tax that Keith Lewis convinced the General Assembly to pass in 1986 has raised $14.7 million for land acquisitions.

The Block Island Conservancy has never stopped making deals for land.

In the basement of his house overlooking Great Salt Pond, Don McCluskey maintains Geographic Information System records tracking every lot on the island -- ownership, taxes and assessed value.

SOME OF THE ISLAND'S leaders stepped away from the battles last year, eager to let the next generation carry on.

Martha Ball decided not to run for reelection as first warden. "It's time to let others defend the island," she said.

Keith Lewis retired from the merchant marine in 1999 to care for his ailing parents. He and his wife, Kay, have been together for 20 years, and they are looking forward to having more time for each other.

Keith sold one lot in the family compound at the Lewis Dickens farm in 2001, the first piece of land he had ever sold at market value. He got $1.75 million for a 9.5-acre house lot, enough money to build a retirement home and continue his conservation efforts.

He plans to donate two more lots totaling more than 14 acres and to continue working to conserve land on the island.

Local builders have erected a classic, two-story farmhouse and a high-peaked garage with a cupola for him. Under both peaks they installed small doors, one for the barn owl Keith is hoping will take up residence and one for the barn swallows. He admires barn swallows: "They are good parents; they know what they have to do; they do it; they work hard; and when they're done, they go."

He made some innovative designs in the house that could only have come from a ship's engineer. After spending years at sea lying on his back trying to find leaks in pipes, he ordered access doors for every joint and valve in the house. He ordered nine heating zones. The row of valves and pipes in the basement workshop looks like a ship's engine room.

Another basement room is set aside for the voluminous family archives. The master bedroom is on the first floor so that when old age comes, the couple won't have to climb stairs.

Upstairs, one room is for guests and two for offices. Keith plans to finish a book about his parents that he has been writing since 1990. Then he'd like to write about island fishermen, mariners and the islanders who went off to fight in World War II.

Kay chose the colors for the rooms to reflect the beauty all around them: ocean blue, seagrass green and straw.

Out their windows to the north are the houses of David Lewis and Keith Lang, Keith's friend who has spent much of his adult life helping the island. To the east are the rolling green hills of Rodman's Hollow.

To the south and west, all you can see are the fields that the Lewises helped to save, and the endless ocean.