PLYMOUTH /Water Street
Secluded, yet close to the ocean and stores

By TERI BORSETI
For The Patriot Ledger Area: 103.2 square miles

POPULATION
2000: 51,701
2007: 57,900

Density: 593 res./square mile
Median age: 38
Median household income: $63,009

FINANCES
Tax rate: $9.71
Town budget: $152.9 million
Avg. water/sewer bill: $625/year

HOUSING
Median home price (# sales)
2006: $327,875 (654)
2007: $275,084 (613)
Median condo price
2006: $240,000 (307)
2007: $246,250 (259)

SCHOOLS
Number of students: 8,325
Number of teachers: 612
H.S. grads to 4-yr. college: 49%
H.S. grads to 2-yr. college: 23%
Median SAT score (2006): 1509 (Plymouth North); 1439 (Plymouth South)

Andrea Melville spent a lot of time at her grandparents house on Water Street when she was growing up. She spends even more time there now since she owns it.

The house is at the northern end of Water Street at Nelson Street near the park and beach.

The neighborhood, which includes Caswell Lane and Shaw Court, is past North Plymouth but not quite into Plymouth Center. Benny’s store is the most familiar landmark and all side streets lead to the ocean.

“I’ve always been told that my grandparents bought this house in the 1930s for $2,500 and paid $20 per month. The house was smaller then. We’ve added on as our family has grown,” Melville said. “Years ago the train used to go by right across the street, and there was a cannery.”

The cannery is long gone and the train tracks are now a biking/walking path that leads to Cordage Park near the Kingston town line.

Melville, a teacher at Silver Lake High School in Kingston, said she the neighborhood “is really one of this town’s best kept secrets.”

“Kids can play in the playground right next door, we can walk to most places, we’re right on the water and yet everything is just a few minutes away,” she said.

Around the corner on Shaw Court stands about a dozen duplexes built at the turn of the 19th century for workers at the former Cordage rope factory.

Jeremy and Nicole Hales, originally from South Boston, live in one.

“We can still walk everywhere the way we did in the city, but it’s still a quiet, out-of-the-way neighborhood and the beach is at the end of the street,” Jeremy Hales said.

The Plymouth school teacher and father of three said duplexes like his sell in the mid $200,000s. “We know our neighbors here and we have block parties in summer. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to get used to living out of the city, but we really like it here,” he said.

Condominiums on Robbins Road sell for $700,000 from $900,000, said Lynn Morey of Coldwell Banker in Plymouth

The neighborhood offers a wide variety of residences as well as price ranges with condos, duplexes and single-family houses, she said.

The town has plans for a major facelift for the area, including upgrades at the park and beach.

Downtown Plymouth, which is short walk away, offers shopping, restaurants and a charming waterfront walk that leads to Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower. Residents of this neighborhood are also close Routes 93 and 44.

See more Neighborhood stories at http://tinyurl.com/patriotledger-neighborhoods.