Both summer and year-round residents are attracted to South Kingstown's Wakefield, a walkable residential area surrounding the Main Street commercial center, set in rural South County, close to some of the finest beaches in Rhode Island.

In a town that is also home to the University of Rhode Island's main campus in Kingston, Wakefield is more than a summer community, but residents and Main Street business owners attest to the increased traffic that the summer months bring.

"The sure sign that summer is here," said real-estate agent Amy Mason, "is when the ice-cream parlors and clam shacks open, and the sidewalks just fill up."

Jill Burke, who teaches in the Chariho Regional School District, recently bought her second house in South Kingstown with her husband, Todd Burke, a pharmacist at the Wakefield CVS.

Burke grew up in Lincoln and her husband is from Rumford, in East Providence, but they both had spent summers in Snug Harbor, in South Kingstown, when they were children, and they've always loved the area.

"It's really nice. My husband and I love the beach. We have dogs. You can actually walk around town; it's not all covered in highways," Burke said.

Burke, who has been married for nearly two years, said their first house was a ranch with only 1,000 square feet of living space. Her new house is a raised ranch, purchased in May for $368,000 in The Oaks, an established neighborhood near the Village Green and the library. She and her husband have been thinking about starting a family, but first they wanted more living space, and at one point they considered building an addition to their first house. They wanted to stay near Wakefield, she said, because of "that small-town America" atmosphere.

Mason, an agent with Residential Properties, lives and works in Wakefield. Mason is from the Midwest, but she came east to attend college in New Hampshire and later lived on Providence's East Side for five years. Although Mason enjoyed city life, she found herself heading down to South County "five days a week" to visit the "beautiful beaches.''

Another move brought her to California for 10 years, but when she returned to Rhode Island, she headed for Wakefield. Today, Mason has been happily settled in Wakefield for three years.

"I think it's much easier to work and sell real estate out of an area when you have such passion for it," Mason said. "You can feel it."

Mason enjoys the architecture of some of the town's historic buildings, including the Town Hall and the public library. She said the downtown area is charming, and the merchants decorate for Halloween and the winter holidays. Three or four times every summer, the main street is shut down in the early evening hours for block parties, Mason said.

"It's very festive," Mason said. "It's just a really wonderful community."

"I like living in a small town," said Carla Davis, owner of the Dove & Distaff store on Main Street. The store, which Davis' late father, Caleb Davis, started in the 1960s, offers a number of home-decorating services, including custom draperies and upholstery work. Davis lives in the Matunuck section of town, and says most of the Main Street business owners are local people "just like me, who fell into doing what they're doing. . . . The next generation is frequently taking over businesses."

Single-family houses for sale recently in Wakefield ranged in price from $240,000 for a three-bedroom Cape, to $2.4 million for a raised ranch with its own deep-water dock on a pond.

Mason says she is working with two sets of buyers looking for houses in Wakefield. One couple is from Atlanta, and they want to be near the beaches, and another couple, from Providence, is looking for a "quieter" life in South County.

"I think most of the people who are coming to this area are looking for a rural setting near the water," Mason said. "Here, there is a little more open space and some of the state's most gorgeous beaches, one after another."

cdunn@projo.com / (401) 277-7913

POPULATION: (South Kingstown, 2000): 27,921

MEDIAN SALES PRICE (South Kingstown, 2005): $374,500

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Wakefield Elementary School

Peace Dale Elementary School

Curtis Corner Middle School

Broad Rock Middle School

South Kingstown High School

INTERESTING FACT: King's Town was incorporated in 1674, and at that time it included the present towns of South Kingstown, North Kingstown and Narragansett.