Residents enjoy many water views throughout Warwick Neck, such as this scene at the end of Narragansett Bay Avenue. Journal photo / Bob Thayer

In quiet, pastoral Warwick Neck, it’s easy to forget, completely, that Warwick is a city. And it’s easy to see why, in 1881, a U.S. senator, Nelson Aldrich, chose Warwick Neck as the place to build a lavish, 28-room mansion in the style of a 17th-century French chateau. Today the 70-acre Aldrich Estate is owned by the Catholic Diocese of Providence, and is the home of Overbrook Academy, a girls boarding school.

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Warwick Neck

Warwick Neck is on a peninsula surrounded by Narragansett Bay, and despite growth and residential development it has an unspoiled, natural beauty. Warwick Neck has its share of summer residences, but it is mainly a year-round community, with the demographics and look of an upscale suburban town.

“It’s a long way from South Providence,” said Jack Slocum, who bought a house on Narragansett Bay Avenue, near the golf course at the Warwick Country Club, in 1980, before his retirement. Slocum and his wife, Betty, are both from South Providence; they were students at Central High School when they met in 1944. Slocum was president of the C.E. Maguire Inc. civil engineering company around the time the couple bought their Warwick Neck house; Slocum had moved the corporate headquarters from Boston back to Rhode Island, where the company was founded in 1938. Slocum said a company attorney lived in the neighborhood, and introduced them to the area.

Betty and Jack Slocum were married in 1950, at St. Michael Church in South Providence. They have 5 children and 12 grandchildren. They like to garden in the summers in the lush backyard of their home, which has water views during the winter, when the leaves are gone. They say they believe their house, which is about 100 years old, used to be the gardener’s house for one of the large estates nearby.

Warwick Neck is also home to the former Rocky Point amusement park, and residents are eager to see how the area will be redeveloped. There is an effort to preserve some of the site as open space, but the U.S. Small Business Administration, the park’s court-appointed receiver, is still considering bids from developers interested in rebuilding on the land.

Although house prices in Warwick Neck begin around $150,000, with a good selection of houses under $200,000, there is a wide range of house size, styles and prices. Warwick Neck houses on the state’s Multiple Listing Services last week ranged in price from $145,900, for a 960-square-foot Colonial built in 1925, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, to $999,900 for a 3,268-square-foot house built in 2001.

One of the houses on the market is of historical interest. The former Old Warwick League Library, built in 1883, at 70 Warwick Neck Ave., has been a private residence since the 1970s, according to Linda Dranville, of Coldwell Banker, who has the listing. The Queen Anne-style house has a distinctive decoration over the porch, an image of an owl carved into a wooden panel. The league was a men’s social and intellectual improvement association formed in 1882. The house, which has plenty of built-in bookshelves, is on the market for $369,900.

cdunn@projo.com