Seawall & Bulkhead Guide: Westerly, Rhode Island

A Shoreline of Very Different Stretches

Per Wikipedia, Westerly's total area is 74.8 square miles: 30.1 square miles of land and 44.7 square miles of water. The Pawcatuck River forms the town's western border with Stonington, Connecticut, making Westerly one of Rhode Island's genuine border towns. From there the coastline runs out past Watch Hill -- a peninsula at the state's southwestern-most point -- and Napatree Point, a 1.5-mile undeveloped sandy spit extending west from Watch Hill toward Connecticut, sheltering Little Narragansett Bay. Separately, Misquamicut is its own village and barrier beach along Westerly's southern Atlantic-facing shore, with a livelier, more developed beach-strip character than Watch Hill's -- this page does not exhaust Misquamicut's own story, which has its own dedicated future build on this site, but it is worth naming as a genuinely different stretch of the same town's coastline.

That range -- river border, sheltered bay-facing spit, and open Atlantic barrier beach -- means a structure built to handle one stretch is not automatically the right approach for another. This page focuses most of its documented detail on Napatree Point specifically, because it is the one stretch of Westerly's coastline with a real, well-documented history of storms physically reshaping the land -- directly relevant background for anyone considering a seawall or bulkhead anywhere along this coast, not just at Napatree itself.

Seawall, Bulkhead, and "Leave It Undeveloped" Are Different Choices

A seawall is typically a vertical or near-vertical wall -- concrete, steel, or masonry -- built at the shoreline to block wave energy where it meets land. A bulkhead is usually a lighter structure, often timber, vinyl, or steel sheet piling, built mainly to retain soil and hold a property line rather than absorb heavy surf. Both are forms of shoreline hardening: built structures meant to hold a line against the water. Napatree Point's own history took a third path entirely, discussed in detail below -- not a wall and not a bulkhead, but a deliberate decision to leave the land undeveloped and let it function as its own buffer. That is not a template that applies to every private parcel in Westerly, and it is not offered here as one; it is offered as real, documented local precedent that hardening a shoreline is not the only response this specific coast has taken to storm damage.

Napatree Point: A Coastline Reshaped by Storms Before

Per the Watch Hill Conservancy's own history page, Napatree Point was once thickly forested -- reportedly named "Nap of Trees" by Dutch trader Adriaen Block in 1614 for its dense tree cover, a name that evolved into "Napatree." That forest was destroyed by the Great Gale of 1815. By 1938, a summer-cottage community had grown along Napatree's dune crest, reaching 39 cottages, after an earlier U.S. Army coastal-defense post at the point's tip, Fort Mansfield, was decommissioned in 1907 and sold to private developers.

The September 21, 1938 hurricane -- the Great New England Hurricane -- destroyed that entire community in a single day. Per Wikipedia's Watch Hill entry and the Conservancy's own history, all 39 cottages, Fort Road, the Yacht and Beach Clubs, and a bathing pavilion were destroyed, and 15 Watch Hill-area residents died, with some survivors clinging to floating wreckage swept across Little Narragansett Bay into Connecticut. The storm did not just destroy buildings -- it physically altered Napatree's geography, breaching the spit in multiple places and separating what is now Sandy Point, which subsequently drifted north across the bay, from Napatree's western tip. This is real, sourced, geography-altering storm history for exactly the kind of coastline where a seawall or bulkhead question comes up, and it should inform how seriously anyone evaluates storm exposure here, not just what happened to buildings.

The 1945 Decision: Preserve as Open Land, Not Rebuild or Harden

In 1945, rather than allow the destroyed cottage community to be rebuilt, the Watch Hill Fire District bought most of Napatree Point specifically to preserve it as undeveloped conservation land. That is a real, documented, and notable coastal-management choice: faced with a stretch of shoreline that storms had already destroyed once, the Fire District's answer was not to rebuild, and not to harden the shoreline with a seawall or bulkhead, but to keep it open and undeveloped -- letting the point function as its own natural buffer rather than building a structure to resist the next storm directly. In 2013, the Fire District granted a conservation easement to the newly organized Watch Hill Conservancy, which has since managed stewardship and educational programming there in partnership with the district. Today, Napatree Point Conservation Area remains open to the public for walking, birdwatching, and surfcasting, with no roads or houses on it.

This does not mean hardening is the wrong choice for a private parcel elsewhere in Westerly, and this page does not claim that. It means that on this specific, well-documented stretch of Westerly's coast, the local landowner with legal control of the property chose "preserve as natural, undeveloped buffer" over "rebuild and harden" after real storm damage -- a genuine, real-world example of the "no hardening" option that a homeowner evaluating a seawall or bulkhead elsewhere in town should know exists as a documented alternative approach, even if it is not the right fit for every parcel.

What This Page Cannot Tell You

No specific current seawall or bulkhead permitting requirements for Westerly or Watch Hill parcels, no typical construction cost, and no Westerly-specific CRMC regulation beyond CRMC's general role as the state's coastal permitting authority were confirmed in the research behind this page -- none of those figures are invented here. This page also does not identify any specific existing private seawall, bulkhead, or revetment anywhere in Westerly; no town-wide inventory of those structures was found. Westerly's property tax rate, by contrast, is confirmed: $7.11 per $1,000 of assessed value for both residential real estate and commercial property, FY2026, per the Rhode Island Division of Municipal Finance -- though it should still be reconfirmed with the Tax Assessor's office in case a newer tax roll has since taken effect.

What can be said is general and directional, not parcel-specific: any private seawall, bulkhead, or revetment construction anywhere along Westerly's regulated coastal zone -- Pawcatuck River side, Watch Hill and Napatree-adjacent, or Misquamicut's ocean-facing side -- would be expected to require review from Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), the state agency that regulates coastal structures statewide, on top of whatever local permitting the Town of Westerly applies. Confirm the specific process, fees, and timeline directly with CRMC and with Westerly's own building or planning office before assuming anything about cost or approval.

Practical Takeaways for a Westerly Waterfront Buyer or Owner

If you are evaluating a property near Watch Hill or Napatree Point, keep Napatree's real, documented storm history in mind -- the 1815 Great Gale, the 1938 hurricane that destroyed 39 cottages and permanently altered the point's shape, and the 1945 decision to preserve rather than rebuild or harden it -- as evidence that this coastline has genuinely been reshaped by storms before, not as a rule about what any individual private parcel should do. Much of Napatree Point itself is owned and controlled by the Watch Hill Fire District as conservation land, not available for private shoreline structures; a private seawall or bulkhead question in this area would apply to privately owned parcels elsewhere along Westerly's coast, including around Watch Hill village, the Pawcatuck River side, and Misquamicut.

Either way, this page is not a substitute for direct professional guidance. Contact Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) for current, parcel-specific permitting requirements, and consult a licensed marine contractor for current, site-specific guidance on whether a seawall, bulkhead, or a lighter-touch approach is even the right fit for a given Westerly property. Nothing on this page is engineering, permitting, or legal advice.