Billi Buehring colors hair at the Village Clipper on Main Street. Ashaway is a quiet village with only 1,537 residents.

The Providence Journal / John Freidah

Ashaway is a village in the small town of Hopkinton, just north of Westerly, and is known in this part of southwestern Rhode Island as a peaceful retreat from the nearby beach communities.

The 2000 Census reported Ashaway had just 1,537 residents, part of a total of 7,836 in Hopkinton. Like the many period houses that dominate the village, the biggest business in Ashaway is neat, well-kept and has been around for a long time.

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Ashaway Line & Twine Manufacturing Co. was founded in 1824 by Capt. Lester Crandall, who made fishing line. Today the firm is still owned and operated by the Crandall family, and is a leading producer of surgical suture thread, strings for racket sports and custom braided products, including fishing line and window sash balancers.

The Crandall House on Main Street is the home of the town’s Recreation Department, and a playground behind the building is called Crandall Park.

Ashaway is also home to the Golf Pavilion Learning Center and Driving Range, one of the many golf courses in the area.

Asking prices for houses on the market in Ashaway this month range from $210,000 for a 1915 three-bedroom Colonial described as a “handyman special” to $595,000 for a house at 149 Main St., an 1880 Victorian that has been completely renovated.

Kedrick and Jessica Swain, a young couple from Westerly, plan to buy their first house this month in Ashaway, on Hillside Avenue, near the Ashaway Elementary School. The Victorian-style house has three bedrooms and two baths, and was listed for $269,000.

Swain said he and his wife were apartment hunting when their real estate agent, Sandy Bliven from Coldwell Banker, suggested they look at the house on Hillside Avenue.

The Swains have a 1-year-old daughter, and they liked the location on a quiet street near a school. The house “pretty much just sold itself,” said Swain, 25, a marine engineer. His wife is an occupational therapist. “It was the right place at the right time.”

“It has a little more of a small town feel than Westerly,” he said of Ashaway.