A volleyball net awaits players along the main beach on South Shore Road at Wallum Lake.

In 1905, the fresh air and quiet woodlands surrounding Wallum Lake, in the northwest corner of Burrillville, were chosen as the site for a new state hospital for tuberculosis patients, now known as the Zambarano Memorial Hospital.

The state-run hospital is now a long-term-care facility for patients with chronic conditions, but the red brick hospital buildings still dominate the landscape. There has been residential development near Wallum Lake as well. In addition to some of the earlier farmhouses that have survived, summer cottages built near the water in the early 1900s were later converted into year-round homes.

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Wallum Lake

And although Wallum Lake is not as densely populated as some of Burrillville’s other villages, there has been steady growth over the years.

Wallum Lake itself extends north across the Massachusetts state line into the Town of Douglas, where it borders the 4,640-acre Douglas State Forest. To the south and west is a 2,049-acre Rhode Island state forest, the Buck Hill Management area, which extends to the Connecticut border.

First settled as farmlands, the Wallum Lake area became home to a corn mill and sawmill, built by Jeremiah Ballard, who first bought land near the lake in 1766, according to Burrillville town historian Patricia A. Mehrtens. Ten years later, Ballard sold his property to Timothy Jenne, who had even more ambitious plans for the area, Mehrtens said: cotton mills, a tannery brickyard, shops, a schoolhouse, a blacksmith shop and a number of prosperous farms made the Wallum Lake area a thriving settlement by the late 1700s.

In 1894, five large icehouses, with a capacity to hold 19,500 tons of ice, were built at Wallum pond, Mehrtens said, and the ice was transported to Providence by train.

Compared to some other areas of Rhode Island, Wallum Lake seems like an unspoiled paradise. But it does have its environmental issues, according to Paul Roselli, chairman of the Burrillville Land Trust. The lake is used as a source of drinking water for the Zambarano hospital, he said, and for that reason, motorboats are prohibited in the Rhode Island side of the lake.

But all forms of boating are allowed by the state of Massachusetts on the Douglas side, which has the lake’s only public launch, and there is little to prevent motorized boats, and the oil slicks they can leave behind, from venturing across the border.

Private septic systems, some of them older and failing, also contribute to lake pollution, Roselli said.

Wallum Lake is also a popular spot for swimming and fishing, two other activities that require water to be protected from contaminants, Roselli said.

“Talk about a multiuse piece of real estate,” he said.

Houses listed for sale in Wallum Lake recently ranged in price from a low of $214,500, for a three-bedroom, one-bath waterview ranch built in 1965 that needs work, up to $1 million for an 1820 Colonial, but listing agent James Secky said that high price reflects the 38 acres that come with the land, which he said would yield five buildable lots.

Information on the state Multiple Listing Service for the $214,500 ranch said it sits on a “rare double lot” that “offers deeded beach rights and boat ramp access.” The listing information added that the house “needs TLC — makes a great home for a handyman!”

cdunn@projo.com