Bristol

Hopeworth, “a little spot that everybody forgets about,” is a neighborhood on the eastern side of Bristol, off Metacom Avenue, with its own playground, beach, bocce league and community association.

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Hopeworth

“I think it’s one of the best values in the whole of Bristol in terms of all-around community,” said Joan Wiese, a real estate agent with Harper, Ramos & Sheridan, and a former Hopeworth resident. “It’s a family neighborhood.

“There’s not a lot of traffic. Kids can ride their bikes in the street. Unless you live there, you don’t go there,” said Wiese, a Maine native who has lived in Rhode Island for 33 years. She runs a bed and breakfast, the Candlewick Inn, on Main Street in Warren.

Wiese said she closed on a house in Hopeworth about two weeks ago. “A lot of children who grew up there with my kids have come back to the neighborhood,” she said. “It’s that kind of place. It’s a little spot that everybody forgets about because it’s tucked away, but there is access to the beach, old-fashioned cookouts, Halloween parties and an ongoing bocce tournament.”

Vasco Castro, of 48 Clipper Way, was president of the Hopeworth Community Association back in the 1960s, and today, his son, Skip Castro, leads the group. Castro calls the Hopeworth neighborhood “a diamond in the rough.” He said it’s close-knit, and people watch out for each other. “The younger people come and plow us old folks out in the wintertime.”

Wiese said the association places floating rafts in the water near the beach in the summer, along with a rack to hold kayaks and dinghies. Early in the summer, she said, there’s a potluck supper for a general meeting to plan neighborhood activities. Every July 4th there is a barbecue celebration, “and everybody can invite as many friends as they want.”

“We get to go down and see people we haven’t seen forever,” she said. The neighborhood group also holds an end-of-the-summer beach party, an annual yard sale, and annual cleanups at the beach and the park. “The whole neighborhood gets together and helps.”

“It’s really a lot of fun, and it’s all based around the family,” Wiese said. “It’s just a very nice place to raise a family.”

Houses in the neighborhood offered for sale recently in the state’s Multiple Listing Service ranged in asking price from $269,000 for a three-bedroom ranch to $535,000 for a 2,500-square-foot contemporary.