A house for sale in the Highlands, just south of the community’s beach on Shore Road. There are tennis courts across the street alongside the East Bay Bike Path.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

There are a number of housing developments along the Warren River and Narragansett Bay waterfront west of Hope Street (Route 114) in Warren and Bristol, bordered by the water and the East Bay Bike Path.

Many are contemporary gated communities, with private dead-end or circular roads marked by large modern houses of similar age and style, manicured lawns and underground utilities.

But the Bristol Highlands, a former summer-home community that began to be developed more than 100 years ago, has a distinctly different feel. Unlike some of the newer developments, which seem bereft of trees, the Highlands is woodsy, with scores of large, mature trees.

There is a mix of housing styles, ages and sizes, though as is the case in many waterfront communities, a number of the largest, newest houses are perched on the water’s edge.

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Bristol Highlands

According to longtime Highlands resident Tony Morettini, the original purpose of the Bristol Highlands Improvement Association, which was formed in 1911, was to bring roads and electricity to the neighborhood.

The association, then mostly summer residents who lived the rest of the year in Providence and Pawtucket, also used to hire a constable to patrol the neighborhood in the off season, he said. Morettini, a past president of the association, currently chairs the group’s social committee.

Today, the Highlands is primarily a community of year-round residents, he said. The association organizes about six to eight social events a year, including a Halloween party for the children, holiday get-togethers, and summer gatherings.

He said there are also a lot of informal gatherings, some held in the summer at the association’s new beach pavilion. The association also has its own private tennis court and dock.

The Highlands has a “very active book club” that meets monthly, and men’s, women’s and mixed doubles tennis groups that play during the season.

Morettini said the association has defined boundaries, and only those who live within boundaries are allowed to join the association. But residents are not required to join. About 95 families, close to two-thirds of those eligible, are members, he guessed.

Realtor Bob Rondeau, of Century 21 Rondeau Associates, has lived in the Highlands for 37 years. “It’s a nice, quiet area,” he said.

Morettini agreed that it is quiet, mainly because the street layout doesn’t invite a lot of through traffic.

“You don’t go through here to get somewhere else,” he said.

The notable exception is the 14-mile East Bay Bike Path, which runs from India Point Park, in Providence, to Independence Park, in Bristol.

Rondeau remembered that in 1982, when the bike path was first proposed, many people in Bristol Highlands, himself included, were opposed to the idea. But “the bike path has added a lot” to the neighborhood, he said.

“A good indicator, to me, of what a great place the Highlands is are the number of folks who have moved, and stayed in the neighborhood,” Morettini added.

He said that at last count, more than 30 families have lived in more than one house in the Highlands. “Several of those have lived in more than two, and a few have torn down their house and rebuilt on the same site in order to stay here,” he reported. “Can’t imagine there are many neighborhoods around with that sort of retention rate!”

Morettini, who is from East Providence, said he became familiar with the Highlands because his wife grew up nearby, and they often walked the hilly streets that looks out over the water. He said they were living in Vermont in 1992 just before they moved back to Rhode Island, and he made an offer on their house in the Highlands sight unseen, based on a description from a real estate agent.

The only contingency, he said, was that he had to see the house the next morning. They drove from Burlington to see the house the next day.

“It was probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” he said.

There were nine houses listed for sale last week in the Highlands — as defined by the listing real estate agents, not the BHIA. Prices ranged from $225,000 for a 780-square foot Cape built in 1949 at 56 Naomi St., to $1,850,000 for a contemporary waterfront house at 55 Shore Rd.

POPULATION:

(Bristol, 2000) 22,469

MEDIAN HOUSE PRICE:

(Bristol, 2007) $320,000

INTERESTING FACT:

Roger Williams University used to maintain a house for its president in the Bristol Highlands neighborhood.

cdunn@projo.com