Misquamicut — Not a Town. Pleasant View, Renamed in 1928, Rebuilt After Three Hurricanes.

A Beach Strip Rebuilt Three Times, Now Home to Rhode Island's Largest State Beach

Misquamicut sits on a barrier beach and sandbar along Westerly's Atlantic-facing southern shore, separating Winnapaug Pond, a saltwater lagoon, from the open ocean. Per Wikipedia, the Misquamicut CDP spans just 1.25 square miles -- 1.17 land, 0.075 water, about 6% water -- a small, tightly-bounded beach village rather than a broad geographic area. It is one of several distinct villages within the Town of Westerly -- Watch Hill to the west, Weekapaug immediately to the east, Bradford, Avondale, and Dunn's Corners further inland -- each with its own separate identity. Misquamicut's own identity, confirmed across sourcing, is that of a livelier, more traditional, family-oriented "beach strip": motels, an amusement park, arcades, mini-golf, and a dense run of small businesses along Atlantic Avenue, in deliberate contrast to Watch Hill's understated, ultra-high-end character.

Before European contact, the Pequot Tribe controlled this land; the Narragansett, under Canonicus, Miantonomoh, and Chief Sosoa, took control of the area between roughly 1632 and 1635, with Sosoa reportedly receiving a land grant of 20,000-plus acres. On June 29, 1660, Sosoa sold the land to five Newport men -- Jeremy and Henry Clarke, Latham Clarke, George Webb, and George Gardiner -- confirmed by Miantonomoh's wife Wawaloam on June 25, 1661; the roughly 10-by-20-mile tract was divided into eighteen shares and became the basis for the settlements that grew into Westerly, Richmond, Hopkinton, and Charlestown. That level of 1660s transaction detail traces to a single local-history source and is presented as generally reliable local history rather than an archivally certain record. The beach stayed largely agricultural for two centuries; resort development began around 1894, when Courtland B. Bliven built the area's first beach cottage, "Pioneer," and his wife named the growing settlement "Pleasant View." By 1895 there were seven cottages on Atlantic Avenue; by 1903-1904 the Pleasant View House and The Wigwam hotels had opened; by 1910 the area held more than 140 cottages and businesses, four major hotels, a casino, and a trolley connection to Watch Hill and Westerly. The name changed from Pleasant View to Misquamicut in 1928 -- a Narragansett-language word rendered as "Red Fish Place" or "Salmon Place" across slightly different sourcing.

By the September 21, 1938 Great New England Hurricane, Misquamicut had grown into a genuine resort community -- per Westerly Sun reporting citing local historian Don Gentile, "two rows of cottages and a street in between," running down to the Misquamicut Club's beach cottage. The storm destroyed it. Unlike Napatree Point at Watch Hill, where cottages were swept out to sea, conservationist Chaplin Bradford Barnes has said Misquamicut's houses "were most likely buried in sand" rather than washed away -- a specific, sourced difference in how this stretch of barrier beach behaved. Concrete stairs that once led to Pleasant View-era cottages remain partially buried in the sand today, periodically exposed at extreme low tides and nicknamed the "stairs to nowhere" in Westerly Sun coverage -- a tangible, present-day relic of the pre-1938 resort. The Pleasant View House hotel was damaged and rebuilt by 1940. Weekapaug Inn, at the eastern edge of Misquamicut, was likewise destroyed in 1938 and rebuilt on a different site by 1939 -- Weekapaug is a separate village within Westerly worth naming only to place Misquamicut's eastern boundary; its own deeper history belongs elsewhere.

A second major hurricane struck in 1944, compounding whatever had been rebuilt after 1938. Hurricane Carol, on August 31, 1954, produced a storm surge of up to 14.4 feet in Narragansett Bay -- surpassing even the 1938 storm's surge -- and, statewide, killed at least 17 people, destroyed 620 houses and 83 other buildings, and caused roughly $200 million in damage (1954 dollars); in Westerly specifically, roughly 200 homes were washed away. A widely-reproduced historical photograph shows cars buried at the Andrea Hotel on Misquamicut Beach after Carol -- the Andrea, a guest house dating to 1912, still operates today as a Misquamicut restaurant. Per RI State Parks' own history page: "In 1938, 1944, and 1954 just about every structure along the beach was flattened, washed out to sea, or damaged." Following that cumulative destruction, Governor Dennis J. Roberts initiated condemnation proceedings to acquire a roughly mile-long stretch of the devastated, privately-held beachfront for public use -- the direct origin of Misquamicut State Beach, which opened in 1959.

Superstorm Sandy, in October 2012, caused significant erosion at Misquamicut State Beach; the state responded by moving roughly 30,000 cubic yards of sand back onto the shoreline as an emergency measure. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers then ran a federally-funded beach erosion control project, funded through the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013, placing about 90,000 cubic yards of sand to restore a 150-foot berm at +7.5 feet mean low water on a 1:15 seaward slope, completed by May 23, 2014 -- the Corps framed the purpose as protecting public infrastructure (bathhouse, parking, and the roadway that serves as an evacuation route) rather than simple cosmetic beach-widening. Erosion has continued to be a live problem since: sand and storm damage regularly wash into Atlantic Avenue's streets even during minor rainstorms across Misquamicut's roughly three-mile developed shoreline, home to an estimated 218 homes and 50 businesses. Caswell Cooke, Executive Director of the Misquamicut Business Association, has been the lead public advocate for a large-scale nourishment project pitched to the Westerly Town Council in May 2024 and presented to state legislators in February 2025 -- extending the shoreline roughly 200 feet seaward by dredging offshore sand and pumping it onto the beach, at an estimated $8-10 million per mile across three miles, or roughly $24-30 million total, with the Army Corps expected to cover about two-thirds if authorized and Westerly's own share estimated at $3-5 million per decade. Cooke has said the full approval process, including congressional authorization and Army Corps feasibility studies, could take as long as four years. As of the most recent reporting found in this research (early 2025), the project remained in the proposal and advocacy stage, not funded or under construction -- readers should check for more current status before treating it as resolved.

Misquamicut State Beach itself is, per RI State Parks' own press release language, "the state's largest and most popular beach." It covers 51 acres, spanning about 2 miles along a roughly 3-mile barrier island that separates Winnapaug Pond from the Atlantic, and is managed by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Division of Parks & Recreation, operating seasonally. The James J. Federico, Jr. Pavilion opened in 1999 at a cost of $1.5 million, replacing older 1950s-era infrastructure -- it includes a bathhouse with composting, waterless "Clivus" toilets installed in the early 1990s (after the aging original septic system nearly forced the beach to close in 1992), a concession building with a gift shop and offices, a lifeguard tower, and shade gazebos, alongside a roughly 2,700-space parking area completed around 2000. Per a 2021 DEM press release, parking fees were non-resident $20 weekday/$30 weekend-holiday and RI resident $10 weekday/$15 weekend-holiday -- figures that should be reconfirmed directly with riparks.ri.gov before being treated as current, since DEM adjusts beach parking fees periodically. The same release notes that roughly 88% of the beach's visitors come from out of state, a striking statistic about who actually uses this beach.

Atlantic Avenue itself carries a genuinely dense roster of real, named, currently-operating businesses. Atlantic Beach Park, at 321 Atlantic Avenue, has operated since 1921 -- originally as the "Atlantic Beach Casino" -- and remains owned and operated by the Trefes family, a century-plus continuity of family ownership. It is a small, 12-acre amusement park and entertainment complex featuring a carousel with an antique band organ, kiddie rides, bumper cars, a game room and arcade, mini-golf, water slides, and an ice cream stand, alongside the oceanfront Windjammer Surf Bar and the indoor Mariner Room event space. Charles Trefes, tied to the Windjammer, is also the 2026-2027 president of the Misquamicut Business Association. Restaurants confirmed via the Misquamicut Business Association's own "Dine" directory and independent listings include Paddy's Beach Club (159 Atlantic Avenue, on the site of the historic 1904 "Wigwam" hotel), the Windjammer Surf Bar, The Andrea (marketed by the operator as "operating for 80 years" as of 2026), Venice Restaurant, The Kitchen at Pleasant View Inn, Gino's by the Beach, Salty's Clam Shack & Ice Cream, Rhode Runner Pizza Company, Misquamicut Sandwich Company, Caswell's Seafood Haven, Maria's Seaside Café, Sam's Beachside Café, Beach Bums Café & Creamery, and Shoreliner, plus seasonal food-truck operators including Buttercup Coffee Cart, Carter's Concessions, Mama Emily's Sweet Treats, and Dusty's Beach Bums. Confirmed lodging includes the Breezeway Boutique Hotel (formerly marketed as "Breezeway Resort"), Sandy Shore Motel, Sandcastle Beachfront Inn, Pleasant View Inn, and Beachcomber -- small, independently-run motels and inns consistent with Misquamicut's affordable family-beach identity. Other named institutions include Winnapaug Country Club and Winnapaug Inn, both trading on the Winnapaug Pond name, and locally-listed brokerage Stanton Realty. This is a real, sourced list, not a certified census of every Atlantic Avenue business -- current operating status should be reconfirmed directly, especially for smaller seasonal operators.

The Misquamicut Business Association, a nonprofit established in 2000, functions, per its own "About Us" page, as "a non profit group of like minded business owners who work tirelessly to improve your experience in Misquamicut," with roughly 45 beach businesses and over 100 associated service and supply companies participating. It is explicitly not a governmental body -- it is a business-advocacy and event-programming association -- but it has become the de facto public face and advocate for Misquamicut, running the beach-nourishment advocacy effort described above, beach-access rights-of-way maintenance, and a busy calendar of programming: a seasonal drive-in movie screen on the beach (one of only two drive-in venues in Rhode Island, screening classic films such as Jaws, Footloose, and The Sandlot), a weekly classic-car cruise night, "Springfest" and "Fallfest" festivals, and a Guy Fawkes Bonfire Night. It partners with the Town of Westerly, the Misquamicut Fire District, the Ocean Community Chamber of Commerce, and the South County Tourism Council. Current (2026-2027) leadership per its own site is President Charles Trefes (of the Windjammer/Atlantic Beach Park family), Executive Director Caswell Cooke, and Festival Director Amanda Perra.

Winnapaug Pond is a breached saltwater lagoon roughly 2.5 miles long, separated from the Atlantic by the same barrier sandbar that Misquamicut and Atlantic Beach sit on. It connects to Block Island Sound via the Weekapaug Breachway, an inlet constructed in the mid-1950s -- a timing that correlates with the same 1938/1944/1954 storm-damage era discussed above, though no source found in this research explicitly confirms a causal link between the two, so the correlation is presented without asserting proven causation. Winnapaug Pond is one of nine recognized "salt ponds" along southern Rhode Island's coast, rated "good" for overall water quality in a 2010 assessment; its relatively small, shallow character makes it favorable for kayaking and other calm-water paddling, and it supports commercial and recreational harvesting of quahogs and bay scallops. NOAA and RI DEM have both highlighted conserved-land and public-access expansion along the pond in recent press coverage.

Misquamicut's reputation, consistent across sourcing, is as a more affordable, family- and seasonal-rental-oriented beach community -- a deliberate contrast to Watch Hill's ultra-high-end tier, already documented on the Westerly market. Zillow's dedicated "Misquamicut Westerly, RI" listings page showed, at the time of this research, 35 homes for sale, ranging from about $150,000 for vacant land up to $18,775,000 for a single luxury oceanfront listing that skews the range dramatically, with most residential listings clustering between roughly $750,000 and $3,000,000 -- a snapshot of active listings, not a computed median. Redfin maintains a dedicated "Misquamicut Housing Market" page confirming Misquamicut is tracked as its own micro-market, but a current median sale price could not be extracted in this research and should be pulled fresh at any point figures are needed. Where Misquamicut-specific figures cannot be confirmed, the honest fallback is Westerly's own town-wide numbers, labeled plainly as town-wide rather than Misquamicut-specific. The 2020 Census recorded Misquamicut CDP's own year-round population at 434 residents across 254 households, with a notably older median age of 63.7 and 44.9% of residents 65 or older -- a small year-round population living amid a much larger seasonal-rental and second-home stock that fills up each summer, mirroring on a smaller scale the same pattern already documented for Watch Hill, though the two CDPs' figures are separately sourced and should never be conflated.