Developer Chuck Royce, of the Ocean House in Watch Hill, says that Westerly's, Elm Street and Main Street will soon be "The Gateway to Westerly."
• Greenwich, CT developer Charles Royce, who is involved in the Ocean House Project, has acquired a large number of contiguous buildings along the Westerly's Main Street, with the plan to create a walk able area, with ground floor retail spaces and residential units on the upper floors. Harvey Perry, president of the Westerly Land Trust has been working with Royce.
• Elm Street has river views from second floor, Pawcatuck River, Marina, Restaurants, boat launch and 7 minutes to Westerly's Beaches.
• Elm Street is a short walk to Downtown Westerly, The Colonial Theatre, fine dining restaurants, the historical Wilcox Park designed by Frederick Olmstead in 1898, (The Victorian-era Park) the Pawcatuck River and soon to be river walk and historical Westerly Library with a beautiful art gallery.
• Every summer, the park hosts an arts festival and Shakespeare in the Park Productions, The Boston Pops performs, in the summer also attracting 20,000 visitors.
• Plans are under way to develop and renovate the old United Theater on Canal Street, a vaudeville-era movie house and condominiums are planned, another hidden treasure.
• Westerly has seven fire districts serving an even greater number of neighborhoods, including Avondale, Bradford, Dunn's Corners, Misquamicut, the North End, Potter Hill, Shelter Harbor, Watch Hill, White Rock, Winnapaug and Weekapaug.
• Outsiders are probably most familiar with the town's beach communities, including posh Watch Hill, which commands some of the highest real estate prices in the state. But the downtown area is where much of the business of everyday life takes place in Westerly. It has the Town Hall, public library and YMCA. Nancy Creaturo owns the building that houses the "Perks and Quirks" coffee/martini bar in downtown Westerly, on High Street. She said the in-town neighborhood is "an ideal place" for young families and older people who don't want to be isolated in 55-plus communities, because "you can walk everywhere." Nancy is one of many involved in the revitalization of Westerly's, Elm Street and downtown High Street buildings.
• "South of Route 1, houses tend to be more expensive, most of the people who grew up in town don't tend to buy near the beach. Westerly has more than "great restaurants" and "beaches that are incredible, the town has all the charms of small-town coastal life, but it's close to Providence, New London, Mystic and Stonington, and, a little farther away, Boston and New York. The Westerly airport is 7 minutes away, grab a flight to Block Island, or the ferry out of Pt Judith.
• Long ago, Westerly wasn't unusual. Today it is exceptional. Most people enter Westerly along Route 3, which becomes High Street pass it passes through Stillmanville, just before it gets to Westerly Village, or downtown Westerly. Veer right onto Railroad Avenue to see the Westerly Armory (1902) and the Westerly Depot (1912), both meticulously restored. The Westerly Train, leaves the station for Boston and New York every hour.
• No, Westerly is not a museum or a theme park. Rather, it recognizes that its beauty relies not just on saving old buildings but on learning from why we believe them worthy of preservation - and employing that knowledge to grace the continuation of history. A beautiful place grows in ways that continue the natural evolution of the built environment that was interrupted for half a century by modern architecture and planning - a brief span of history that most places seem to feel bound to respect.
Westerly just skips right over it.
• Midway to Boston and New York, Westerly, RI is the Alternative to the Hamptons
