The leafy enclave in northern Rhode Island boasts good schools, as well as a reasonable commute to Boston or Providence.

10:01 AM EDT on Monday, June 12, 2006

By CHRISTINE DUNN
Journal Staff Writer

North Cumberland's location on the Massachusetts border draws many residents who work in the Boston metropolitan area and are attracted by the relatively affordable housing in Rhode Island. Others, including many who work in northern Rhode Island, come to the Arnold Mills/Diamond Hill Road neighborhood for the family atmosphere and school system in this friendly bedroom community.

Arnold Mills is one of the more established neighborhoods in Cumberland, and the leafy enclave, with a mix of housing styles, is seen as highly desirable, according to Susan Stamford, an agent with Coleman Realtors' Cumberland office.

"Arnold Mills is a real neighborhood," Stamford said, "It's very homey, very New England."

Leo Lennon, a longtime Arnold Mills resident, said, "It has not changed much over the years, and that's one of the nice, charming things about it."

Newer houses in developments off Diamond Hill Road, Rawson Road and Abbott Run Valley Road offer more square footage and the latest amenities, although many of the newest streets lack the mature trees so common in most of Arnold Mills.

Recent listing prices for houses in the neighborhood ranged from $284,900 for a three-bedroom ranch to $1,185,000 for a custom house in Christina Gene Estates, off Hillside Road, near the Community School. The median sales price for existing single-family houses in Cumberland last year was $324,950, but prices in north Cumberland are generally higher than the town average.

Lennon, who has reared his five daughters in Cumberland, grew up in Pawtucket; a job in Foxboro, Mass., lured his family north. Many of the houses on his street were built in the years after World War II, for veterans starting families, Lennon said.

At first, "I was interested in getting down close to Warwick or North Kingstown, next to the ocean," Lennon said. "But we started shopping around, and we found this house."

Amy Wooten moved to Cumberland with her husband and children about four years ago. Wooten is a native of Connecticut, but her family had been living in Cincinnati before their move to Rhode Island. Wooten still remembers their sticker shock at area housing prices. "We spent twice as much and got the same house," she said.

Her husband's job, then in Marlboro, Mass., directed their house search, Wooten said. The plan was to locate midway between Marlboro and Wooten's family, who live in southern Rhode Island and Connecticut. They looked in Mansfield, Mass., their first choice, but couldn't find a house there, so they refocused their search to Lincoln, Smithfield and Cumberland.

Stamford says many houses in Cumberland are sold to "relocation people from other states, and a lot are from Massachusetts." Fidelity and Amica employees are also part of the mix, she said.

"They want the location near the highway; they want the school system," Stamford said.

There are two Cumberland exits on Route 295, one leading directly to Diamond Hill Road, and the commuter train to Boston has stops in nearby Attleboro and South Attleboro.

Local businessman Don McHoul and his wife, Barbara McHoul, moved from North Attleboro to Cumberland close to four years ago, but it was a particular house, or rather a particular estate, the Riley property at 16 and 18 Rawson Rd., that brought them to town. The main house, constructed in 1964 by the late Gerald E. Riley, a local builder, is one of the most famous in town, because part of the house is built over a little waterfall that is part of Abbott Run Pond.

Riley was active in the local Republican Party and several charitable groups, and hosted many parties and fundraisers at the main house and the smaller chalet house on the property, McHoul said. At one time, there was a glass floor in the section of the house built over the water, and guests were said to have marveled at the rushing water running under their feet. McHoul said the floor has since been replaced, but he has been investigating the possibility of returning it to its former glory.

McHoul purchased 18 Rawson Rd. for $1.6 million in 2002 from the estate of Riley's widow, Frances Riley, who died in 2001 at the age of 97.

Few houses in Cumberland can rival the Riley property, but many who have lived in the neighborhood for years have noted that new houses in north Cumberland seem to be getting bigger every year. Lennon has noted with amusement the "McMansions" sprouting around Nate Whipple Highway and Diamond Hill Road. "And they're monster houses," he said. "I don't know who needs to build such a big house when everybody has one-point-five children."

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