This home on Main and Lawton streets offers spectacular sunset views of the Sakonnet River and Portsmouth.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

Stone Bridge in Tiverton is a neighborhood with a view. The Sakonnet River is visible from almost every street, including Highland Road, a hilltop street that runs parallel to Main Road.

“Basically, we’re all living on a ledge,” said George-Ann Liebl, a resident of Palmer Road. She lives at the end of this dead-end street in a Victorian-era cottage with expansive views of the river from its front porch and yard. The house is oriented toward the water, and the back faces the street.

Finding a house high above water level was important to Liebl. In 1991, her family’s two-bedroom beachfront cottage in south Tiverton was picked up and dropped by Hurricane Bob — Wizard-of-Oz-style. The house landed upright, one-third of a mile inland, pretty much intact, still filled with furniture and household items, but in a protected wetlands area, the Fogland Marsh. The land is owned by the Nature Conservancy. Liebl, who is an art dealer and teacher, said after exploring the options they ended up giving the cottage to the Nature Conservancy, which then burned it down to protect the marsh.

Liebl may now be situated well above sea level, but she still has to contend with the brisk winds that whip around the Stone Bridge neighborhood. She said the wind is sometimes so noisy that it wakes her up at night.

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An earlier hurricane named Carol in 1954 destroyed the very bridge that gave the neighborhood its name. The Stone Bridge had linked Tiverton to the Island Park section of Portsmouth; two years later, it was replaced by the Sakonnet River Bridge, almost one mile to the north.

The neighborhood school, Fort Barton Elementary, is being reconstructed this year, and students have been relocated to other school buildings in town. The project involves demolition of 14,000 square feet of the old building, renovation of 6,000 square feet of space and the construction of a new 30,000-square-foot, two-story section.

Many houses in Stone Bridge are historic, but there are newer ones here and there, including a small group of contemporary-style houses on Jennifer Lane, a cul-de-sac on rising ground off Main Road.

In the single-family house category, properties on the market in Stone Bridge last week started at $279,000 for a three-bedroom, one-bath Cape Cod built in 1948 with 1,209 square feet of space, at 25 Reed St., and topped out at $1.2 million for a former rectory at 1660 Main Rd., a 10-room Victorian on a 2.5-acre lot. That house went on the market in 2006 with an asking price of $2.5 million. Also at the high end, priced at $999,900 is a 5,180-square-foot, 1958 Colonial, at 117 Highland Rd., with five bedrooms, two full baths and three half baths. Another Highland Road house is on the market at $895,000; it’s a center hall Cape Cod-style house with a separate carriage house. On a waterfront street, at 300 Riverside Drive, is a 1974, three-bedroom ranch listed for sale at $649,000.

A two-family house at 67 Lawton Ave., a 1910 yellow Victorian at the intersection with Summit Avenue, has an asking price of $489,900.

There were no condominiums on the market last week in Stone Bridge, but to the north of the neighborhood there is a new age-restricted (55-plus) condominium and townhouse development called the Villages on Mount Hope Bay. Of those units listed for sale last week, apartment-style condominiums in a mid-rise building were available at prices starting at $359,000, for a one-bedroom, one full- and one half-bath unit with 1,106 square feet of space, and in the townhouse development, the highest asking price was $1,195,000, for a 3,590-square-foot home with three bedrooms, three full baths and one half bath.

POPULATION:

(Tiverton, 2000) 15,260

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE:

(Tiverton, 2007) $317,750

PUBLIC SCHOOLS:

Fort Barton Elementary School

Tiverton Middle School

Tiverton High School

INTERESTING FACT: During the Revolutionary War, when the British controlled Aquidneck Island, Fort Barton, which is accessible from Highland Road, was the staging area for the Continental Army’s unsuccessful invasion of Aquidneck Island and the Battle of Rhode Island. The observation tower and walking trails at Fort Barton are open to the public year-round.

cdunn@projo.com