Bousquetaerials.com / Nate Bousquet

Call it an icon in the making.

The huge yellow Ocean House hotel had been a mainstay of Westerly’s Watch Hill section since its building in 1868, featured in the 1916 film American Aristocracy, starring Douglas Fairbanks and Jewel Carmen. But it closed in 2003 and was razed in 2005, a victim of deterioration over time.

Now work is under way for a new Ocean House, billed as a “boutique-style” 48-room hotel that will also include a restaurant, a ballroom, a spa and 24 luxury residences. The target for the new hotel’s opening is early 2010.

Behind the hotel site in this aerial photo, shot Wednesday, is the village of Watch Hill, leading out to Napatree Point. The point is the most southwesterly corner of Rhode Island. In the distance at upper right, past Little Narragansett Bay, is the coastline of Stonington, Conn. At left, past the edge of Block Island Sound, is the shore of Fishers Island, N.Y.

The photos in this series are shot from a 2½-pound radio-controlled airplane mounted with a camera, and operated by Nate Bousquet of Don Bousquet and Son Aerial Photography.

— ALAN ROSENBERG

South County Regional Editor