NAP- Neighborhood Alliance of Pawtucket

Oak Hill a great place...

Apr 25, 2006

Neighborhood of the week: Oak Hill residents like that sense of community

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, April 23, 2006
BY CHRISTINE DUNN
Journal Staff Writer



Pawtucket's Oak Hill is a residential neighborhood that borders the East Side of Providence. It has a mix of housing prices and styles, and its residents are equally diverse, including many artists and others in creative professions, who enjoy being near all the amenities of urban life.

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"We call it a mini-East Side," says Realtor Jeffrey Weller, of Coldwell Banker, who has an active listing in the neighborhood. But "the taxes are a lot less," he said, and the difference "is enough to get people's attention."

"It's more affordable than the East Side. It's like Edgewood in that respect," says Matt Molloy, who works for Remax 1st Choice in Cranston.

"One thing I like -- it's not a true suburb. It is semi-urban," says Oak Hill resident Pam Ardizzone. "It's really close to the city. It's walking distance to all the shops." Ardizzone is a public relations and marketing consultant who runs her business out of her home. She and her husband moved from New York to Providence in 1999, then to Oak Hill in 2000. They have a 3 1/2-year-old daughter. "It was a quality-of-life move," she says. "We wanted to slow down."

Ardizzone and her husband, a Brooklyn native, have met other transplanted Brooklynites in Oak Hill. "It's just a really cheery, unpretentious neighborhood where there is a strong sense of community here, and everyone is really friendly," she says. Ardizzone belongs to a Marbury Avenue book club, and she says block parties are common in Oak Hill. "It's really easy to connect with other people," she says. "I can ask people to dog-sit. I can ask people to watch my kid."

Oak Hill is considered one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Pawtucket, and home prices reflect that. The median sales price for existing single-family houses in Pawtucket last year was $231,875. In a recent week, houses on the market in Oak Hill ranged in price from $204,500 to $669,900. There are also a variety of condominiums for sale.

Arthur S. Plitt, who leads the Neighborhood Alliance of Pawtucket, has lived in Oak Hill for 35 years. "But we're still newcomers," he jokes. He was a founder of Oak Hill's crime-watch group, and the later Oak Hill Neighborhood Association. "It's really a friendly, community-oriented type of neighborhood," he says. "Many of the people are arts-oriented."

East Side Eden, a garden shop on Alfred Stone Road, off Blackstone Boulevard, recently hosted a post-holiday party for the neighborhood association, Plitt said. The shop, owned by Alexandra Knott, is in a Victorian cottage connected to the old greenhouse for the Riverside Cemetery.

Although the neighborhood group started out as a crime watch, "it has really evolved into much more than that," Plitt says. "It helps in developing relationships and enhancing things." Meetings are often held in the Oak Hill Nursing Home, and the group is active in local development issues, helps organize playgroups, and cosponsors an annual coat drive on the day after Thanksgiving.

Herb Weiss, the economic and cultural-affairs officer for the City of Pawtucket, lives on Marbury Avenue in Oak Hill with his wife, and is perhaps Oak Hill's biggest booster. He enjoys Oak Hill's "small-town feel," and its diversity.

"You have all the benefits of Providence without having to pay the high taxes," Weiss says, adding that his "pet peeve is when Oak Hill people say they live in the East Side."

The residential development of Oak Hill boomed in the 1920s. Pawtucket developer M.J. Gallagher had filed the 400-lot Oak Hill Avenue Plat on the east side of East Avenue in 1914, but most building there occurred in the 1920s and '30s.

"There's very little land there left for new construction," says Michael D. Cassidy, Pawtucket's planning director. "Most homes are pre-World War II," he said, though some houses date back to the late 1800s. Recently, he said, a former commercial laundry building was demolished, and replaced with 10 new townhouse units.

Liz Trostli, who teaches graphic design in Attleboro and is also a giftware product designer, enjoys the period detail of her 1929 Oak Hill house. She fondly remembers shaking up the neighborhood a bit when she moved in and painted her house lavender with cream trim and deep purple shutters. She also moved her perennial garden to the front of the house to take advantage of the light.

She moved to Oak Hill with her first husband, Alan Rosenberg, a musician with the Rhode Island Philharmonic, who is now deceased. He wanted to live in Oak Hill because so many other musicians lived in the neighborhood, she said.

Trostli says she plans to stay in Oak Hill even if she decides to sell her house and move into a condominium when she gets older.

Nick Paciorek, who lives on Blaisdell Avenue with his wife, is an artist who also runs a building company, New Age Builders and Remodeling, in Pawtucket. He has restored his house, a bungalow, on the inside, and removed the vinyl siding on the outside, with an attention to period detail that was recognized by a local preservation group.

Paciorek says he found the house "accidentally," driving around the neighborhood with his wife, Michelle, 15 years ago. They had been living in a loft in downtown Providence. "I grew up in the inner city, in Chicago," he says. "I feel like I'm in the country. It's an ideal scenario."

cdunn@projo.com / (401) 277-7913

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OAK HILL AT A GLANCE

Population: (Pawtucket, 2003, estimated): 74,330

Median Sales Price: (Pawtucket, 2005): $231,875

Public Schools: Frances J. Varieur Elementary School

Samuel Slater Junior High School (Mineral Spring Avenue)

Shea High School

Interesting fact: Textile magnates William and Frederic Sayles owned most of Oak Hill in the late 19th century, but their mansions were destroyed in 1920 and 1945; the coachmen's house and the stone wall at the corner of Sayles and East Avenues are all that remain.

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YOUR TURN: Why do you live in Oak Hill?

http://projo.com/oakhill