Mercymount Country Day School, run by the Sisters of Mercy, won the U.S. Department of Education’s Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award in 1997. The Providence Journal / Glenn Osmundson

In north Cumberland, acres of open space and farmlands have made way in recent years for new housing subdivisions. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the houses in these single-family developments seemed to grow ever bigger and more expensive, with individual house prices approaching and eventually exceeding $1 million.

In 2001, the town moved to cap building permits at 25 per quarter to put the brakes on the boom.

The Grants Mills neighborhood, near the border of Wrentham, Mass., has its share of housing subdivisions, but it remains one of the more rural sections of town.

This is partly because it is almost entirely surrounded by water and open space: Diamond Hill State Park, Miscoe Lake and the Diamond Hill Reservoir.

And it is partly because a large parcel is under the control of the Sisters of Mercy, an order of Roman Catholic nuns that owns more than 220 acres in the heart of the neighborhood.

The Sisters of Mercy run Mercymount Country Day School, a K-8 institution that in 1997 won the U.S. Department of Education’s Blue Ribbon School of Excellence award.

Mercymount, which was founded in 1948, sits on a hill overlooking Wrentham Road. Mercymount school is clearly visible from the road, but Cumberland is the northeast regional headquarters for the Sisters of Mercy, and their pastoral campus includes a number of other buildings.

According to a history of the town, Joseph Grant built a sawmill in 1818 at what is now 8 West Wrentham Rd., nearer to the Cumberland Hill section of town than the area known today as Grants Mills. But an earlier sawmill that was destroyed by a flood was owned by a Samuel Grant, and this mill was located at the intersection of Diamond Hill and Pine Swamp roads. Before the American Revolution, the Tower family ran a nail factory and sawmill in the area.

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Grants Mills

Most of the housing in the Grants Mills neighborhood is single-family, with the notable exception of Ski Valley, a townhouse development built in the late 1980s. Ski Valley is located at the top of a hill at the end of Fisher Road, near Mercymount, and the highest point there has attractive views of the surrounding woodlands.

A number of single-family houses ring Miscoe Lake on Wrentham Road; Cook Road, accessed from Little Lane and Grants Mills Road, is a heavily wooded, curving, narrow street that also includes a number of newer houses, including some interesting contemporary houses.

Four townhouse units are for sale in Ski Valley, the 1988 development in a secluded spot at the end of Fisher Road. The prices range from $269,900 to $319,900.

A handful of single-family houses were listed for sale this month in Grants Mills. Two of the listings were for houses with waterviews of Miscoe Lake: a contemporary ranch at 35 Cook Rd., built in 1961, with three bedrooms and three full bathrooms, and 2,804 square feet of living space, priced at $358,900; and a 1987 Colonial at 104 Wrentham Rd., priced at $469,900, with three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and 2,468 square feet of living space. There were also two listings on West Wrentham Road, both have four bedrooms, two full bathrooms, and one half bathroom. One, at 411 West Wrentham Rd., was built in 1999 and is priced at $479,900; the other, at 381 West Wrentham Rd., was built in 1985, and is priced at $517,000.

POPULATION:

(Cumberland, 2000) 31,840

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE:

(Cumberland, 2007) $296,000

INTERESTING FACT:

According to a history of the town, the Arnold Mills Reservoir was built in 1927 to add water to the adjacent Diamond Hill Reservoir.

cdunn@projo.com