05:17 PM EDT on Sunday, April 30, 2006

BY CHRISTINE DUNN
Journal Staff Writer

SMITHFIELD -- Jennifer Shaker and her husband, Steven, have decided it's time to move into a bigger home. Their 4-bedroom, Cape-style house now seems too small for their family, which includes three young children, a cat and a new puppy.

Gallery: Greenville, Smithfield

"The puppy pushed us over the top," she said.

Their Winsor Street house just went on the market last week, with an asking price of $359,900. The Shakers are trying to sell the house themselves. They may use a real estate agent eventually, because they have selected the house they want to buy. But one thing is certain.

"We're staying in Greenville," Shaker said.

"We've been looking for a house for quite some time," she said, but "I wouldn't consider leaving Greenville."

Shaker's roots in the town of Smithfield run deep. "My mother's side goes back five generations; my father's, three," she said. Her "poor husband," she said, in a joking manner, has little choice in the plan to stay within "a five-mile radius" of their house.

But roots alone don't account for Shaker's attachment to Greenville. "The most important thing keeping me here is the schools," she said.

Jennifer Shaker is president of the Parent Teacher Organization at Greenville's William Winsor Elementary School, and she wants to keep her children there. Her two older children attend the school now, and her youngest will enter kindergarten in the fall.

"The children are happy there," she said, and the Winsor school has "wonderful" teachers. "How could I ever think of changing schools?"

In Smithfield, Greenville "has been known as the zip code to live in for a very long time; 02808," said broker Karl Martone of the Martone Group at Remax Properties, in Smithfield. "It's the popular zip code."

Smithfield "is a solid community with a great school system, a wonderful diversity of people, and it's really centrally located to get to Boston or the beaches," Martone said. "Those are the reasons why it's always been a consistent market."

Martone, who has been in the real estate business for 21 years, said even when interest rates were at an all-time high, Greenville's popularity kept sales and prices there steady.

The Town of Smithfield was created in 1731, when Providence County was divided into three large towns -- Smithfield, Glocester and Scituate -- in addition to Providence.

Smithfield's rough topography discouraged farming in many areas, but its proximity to running water supplied power for textile mills. The Waterman Reservoir, Slack's Reservoir in Greenville, home of the Town Beach, and Hawkins Pond were created in the early 19th century to accommodate textile mill operations.

One of the former textile mill buildings, at 711 Putnam Pike, is now the home of The Purple Piano, a center for music lessons, art classes and birthday parties. Owners Skip Gervais and Arleen Sherman also sell work by local artists in their unique and colorful space. There is a ramp access to the building so that music students who have handicaps can be accommodated.

Family recreation spots in Greenville include Deerfield Park, which includes two playgrounds, tennis courts, soccer fields and the town's senior center. The town beach at Slack's Reservoir is popular with local residents, as is the Greenville Public Library, which offers an array of activities for children, teens and adults. Smithfield also has a YMCA on Deerfield Drive, off Pleasant View Avenue.

Smithfield's median house price last year -- $309,950 -- was above the state median of $282,900. In a recent week, single-family houses on the market in the Greenville neighborhood ranged from $200,000, for a ranch-style house on a one-acre lot -- listed as in need of a total rehab and being sold as is -- to $639,900.

"A lot of people do seem to want to come to this area from other towns," Jennifer Shaker said. "My heart is in Greenville. It's a wonderful place to live."

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Greenvile At a Glance

POPULATION (SMITHFIELD, 2000): 20,613

MEDIAN SALES PRICE (SMITHFIELD, 2005): $309,950

PUBLIC SCHOOLS: William Winsor Elementary (across from Greenville Public Library)

Gallagher Middle School

Smithfield High School

INTERESTING FACT: St. Thomas Episcopal Church, at 578 Putnam Pike, was built in the 1850s in the Gothic Revival Style and designed by noted Rhode Island architect Thomas A. Tefft.