Many private roads in Rhode Island are inhabited by people who are willing to pay a little extra for snowplowing and road maintenance to enjoy the quiet and reduced traffic of a place that is closed to the public.

But in the exclusive enclave of Pojac Point in northeastern North Kingstown, more extreme measures have been taken to keep outsiders away from the winding, wooded road near Narragansett Bay.

Residents estimate that about 50 to 60 families reside in Pojac Point; last week, there were five houses listed for sale in the neighborhood, ranging in price from $669,000, for a four-bedroom, 1977 Colonial at 35 Pojac Point Rd., to $4.5 million for Oak Leaf, a 9,000-square-foot mansion designed in 2003 by Newport Collaborative Architects, at 61 Pojac Point Rd.

In 1950, through an act of the General Assembly, the Pojac Point Fire District was created, although the organization has never operated its own fire department or emergency medical service. North Kingstown Fire Chief David Murray said there used to be a volunteer fire department on North Quidnesset Road years ago, but that group did not exclusively serve residents of Pojac Point.

Murray said he does not know of any other fire district in Rhode Island that does not provide firefighting services to its residents, but he added that it is possible that there are others. W. Lambert Welling, whose family once owned nearly all of Pojac Point, said the fire district was created to give the neighborhood group the power to collect taxes to pay for common expenses.

The Pojac Point Fire District does have its own “trespass commissioner,” Peter Lawson, whose duties center on issues relating to unwelcome persons who may wander by intent or mistake onto Pojac Point Road, which is a private road. Lawson said he did not want to comment for any story that might be published about the neighborhood.

“It’s a low-key place,” explained Pojac Point resident Peggy Sharpe. “… They really don’t want to make a big thing of this place. … They don’t want to highlight it as a big, fancy place.”

Sharpe, who is married to Henry Sharpe, whose family founded the Browne and Sharpe Manufacturing Co., which was sold in 2000, donated about 60 acres off Pojac Point Road to The Nature Conservancy. The only way to access the property is by traveling on the private road; as a result, it is enjoyed mainly by neighborhood residents, she said.

Sharpe said she wanted to see the land remain in its natural state rather than be subdivided for new house lots. Local zoning rules require a minimum of 5 acres for an individual house lot in Pojac Point.

In 2006, about 40 acres of the former Gibson estate was subdivided into 5 house lots, at 34, 37, 38, 39, and 41 Pojac Point Rd; the buyer in the $2-million sale was listed as VIIS LLC, and Roland P. Cardi of North Kingstown is listed in the contact information for 41 Pojac Point Rd.

But it was a much smaller subdivision on Pojac Point, proposed before a 2003 property sale, which has prompted an ongoing legal action.

The subdivision of a 10-acre parcel at 51 Pojac Point Rd., approved by the town’s Planning Commission and later upheld by the town’s Zoning Board of Review, led to a lawsuit in 2004 by a small group of Pojac Point neighbors.

The legal argument appeared to be a question of whether or not Pojac Point Road existed; and this year, a judge agreed that it did. To subdivide a lot, frontage on a road is required by law.

When the dispute started, the land in question was owned by Welling, who “was trying to do whatever was needed to subdivide a lot” so that “his son could build a house on it,” said former North Kingstown town counsel A.. Lauriston Parks, who has represented the town boards in the case.

In 2003, Welling sold the property to Brian Stainken and Marsha L. Dupree, according to lawyer John Kenyon, who represents the couple. Appraisal records list the sale price at $1,350,000. Welling, Stainken and Dupree are defendants in the lawsuit, along with the members of the Planning Commission and the Zoning Board of Review.

Kenyon said Stainken and Dupree, who are married, have renovated an existing house on the property, but have not built a new house on the parcel or tried to sell off any part of the land.

In a Sept. 17 decision, Washington County Superior Court Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson upheld the rulings of the town boards that the road exists and the subdivision is thus allowable. But Kenyon said the neighbors’ group recently appealed Thompson’s decision to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

“Here, the issue before the Planning Commission related to the nature and location of Pojac Point Road at different points in time,” Thompson’s decision read. “Mr. Welling and several of his neighbors testified at the Planning Commission’s public hearing that Pojac Point Road had run across the property for many years and that it had always been used as a road. The Court finds that such testimony constituted competent evidence of the physical facts … and allowed the Planning Commission to infer that it was actually recognizing –– and thereby allowing to be used for frontage purposes –– a road that had already existed. Accordingly, expert testimony as to the physical location and age of the road was not required, and Petitioners argument to the contrary is without merit.”

The lawsuit was brought by Helen J. Beaven, of 50 Pojac Point Rd., and the “Pojac Point Limited Partnership, L.P., by and through its General Partner, Stephen Soscia; J. Weston Abar; Joan Abar; David B. Rickard; June L. Rickard; Sylvia Long; George T. Oliver, Trustee; Frances Y. Oliver, Trustee; and Paul P. Milhailides,” according to court records. Beaven declined to comment.

“I think it’s an extraordinarily frivolous lawsuit that was vindictive against an individual, and has no merit,” Welling said. “…I’m the person they’re after.”

At one point, Welling said, his great-grandmother owned almost the entirety of Pojac Point, about 600 acres; today, he still maintains an historic family cemetery there, within the land he sold to Stainken and Dupree, but he lives in Massachusetts. His family kept a summer home in Pojac Point for many years.

Parks said he did not know how much the lawsuit has cost the Town of North Kingstown in legal fees.

“The lawsuit certainly caused a bit of trouble” in the neighborhood, Peggy Sharpe said. “…But things are being mended.”

cdunn@projo.com