Marjorie Talbert mows the grass in the front yard of her Park Avenue home in Matunuck recently.

THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL / Kris Craig

Joan Selwyn has been married for 42 years, and has owned a house in Matunuck for 40 of those years. At first, Matunuck was only a summer home for the Selwyns, who are from Providence, but their stays in this South Kingstown beach village became longer as their children grew older.

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Today, Selwyn and her husband, who is semi-retired from his Providence trucking business, live in Matunuck from April through the December holidays, and spend the winter months in West Palm Beach in Florida.

Five years ago, they remodeled their raised ranch house at the corner of Card’s Pond Road and Blackberry Hill Drive to take advantage of the ocean views. A family room and “pub” share space on the top floor, along with the master bedroom. They often host gatherings for their friends. “They like that there’s no bar tab,” she said.

The Selwyns’ house, like many on Blackberry Hill Drive, would fit in a suburban subdivision in Lincoln. But Matunuck’s housing stock is extremely varied, and includes mobile homes and small cottages on leased land at Roy Carpenter’s Beach, the Blackbeard Trailer Association and Mary Carpenter’s Beach Meadows, beach rental houses and year-round houses of different sizes, and even a few luxury residences.

“Matunuck is a really neat little community. It’s really funky. You’ve got the trailers and the bars, and we love all that. You’ve got Joyce’s Family Pub. You’ve got The Vanilla Bean [an ice cream shop]. There’s such a sense of community,” said John Larned, an East Providence native who owns a beach house in Matunuck.

Larned’s career brought his family to the Philadelphia area to live most of the year, but they plan to keep the Matunuck house they bought 10 years ago. They rent out the three-bedroom Matunuck house for $2,200 a week for part of the season, and stay in it themselves for at least a few weeks each summer.

Larned said his son has worked as a lifeguard at the Town Beach for several years. One of his children just graduated from Bates College in Maine, and the other is still a student there, he said.

“The Bonnet Shores is beautiful, but the kids can’t walk down the street and get an ice cream cone … and there’s not the same sense of community,” Larned said, adding that Matunuck “is totally eclectic.”

“For those of the Catholic persuasion, there is even a little chapel that is a satellite of the St. Francis of Assisi Church in Wakefield,” he added.

The approach to Matunuck from Route 1 and Matunuck Beach Road looks rural and idyllic, thanks to efforts by the town and conservationists to protect undeveloped land, Selwyn said. And the parking areas near the Town Beach are small and surrounded by tall beach grasses. There is a compact grocery store near the beach, the Seaview Marketplace, which stays open all year to cater to the full-time residents (1,137, according to the 2000 Census). In addition to Joyce’s Family Pub, which Larned said is “really family oriented,” there is the Ocean Mist bar. “If you’re 25, that’s where you want to be,” Larned said.

The Admiral Dewey Inn, at 668 Matunuck Beach Rd., was built in 1898 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. The inn is named for George Dewey, leader of the U.S. Naval fleet that won the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. The inn has 10 rooms and is open year-round. Owner Joan LeBel bought the inn in 1985 and restored it.

Theatre-by-the-Sea, the Matunuck summer theater that closed in 2003, may soon be back in business. The owners of the Card’s Pond Road landmark have said they have a pending agreement to sell it to Massachusetts cinema chain owner Bill Hanney, who plans to reopen the theater and its restaurant.

Housing prices in Matunuck range from $55,000 for a 322-square-foot cottage built in 1940 on leased land at Roy Carpenter’s Beach to $985,000 for a custom, 1,984-square-foot house built in 2001 at Matunuck Point, with views of Potter Pond and East Matunuck beach.

There are also new oceanfront condominiums for sale on Ocean Road. Called the Matunuck Breakers, eight small cottages built in the mid-1900s have just been completely renovated; four have already sold and four remain on the market [at prices of $488,000, $588,000 and two at $698,000]. All the units have under 500 square feet of living space, but they are luxurious and come with plasma televisions, furnishings, and are part of a gated community with a private beach, according to Lori Joyal of Lila Delman Real Estate.

Rob Thoresen, of Wakefield, is the great-grandson of Leroy Carpenter, who founded the Roy Carpenter’s Beach Association off Card’s Pond Road in the early 1900s. Today there are 379 residences on leased land at the Matunuck beachfront community, according to South Kingstown’s municipal planner, Vincent Murray.

Thoresen said Roy Carpenter’s started as a tent campsite. Today, the owners of the cottages and small houses each pay $2,400 a year to lease their land, and they are also responsible for property taxes for their own buildings. Thoresen said the land owners pay the land taxes.

Thoresen said beach erosion has caused problems in recent years; a small onsite convenience store and snack bar was almost lost to the tide and had to be moved back, and then it was closed because it had lost its “grandfather” status and failed to meet current regulations for coastal development.

The erosion also led to a recent decision to make Roy Carpenter’s Beach private, because there was no longer room for both residents and the general public to enjoy the space, he said. Property rentals are not allowed at Roy Carpenter’s Beach, as they are at nearby Mary Carpenter’s Beach Meadows, which has 301 units, including trailers and cottages.

Thoresen said managing the site has its headaches — “all the different [government] agencies are after you for everything under the sun” — but he and his family would “like to keep it going for as long as we can. … You don’t find too many places like this anymore.”

Murray, whose family has owned a summer place at Carpenter’s Beach Meadows since 1962, said Matunuck “was a great place to grow up.” He said the “interesting mix” of housing and people — surfers, teens, families with young children, and younger and older adults — gives the community its lively flavor. “Matunuck is certainly dear to my heart,” he said.

Selwyn, who looks forward to her return to Matunuck and her Rhode Island friends and family members each spring, expressed the same sentiment. “If you’re a native, this is home,” she said.