Watch Hill, Rhode Island
For several generations, the community has maintained its "old-money summer colony" atmosphere. This was even as traditional summer communities have developed, namely Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard and the Hamptons. New England traditions are evident in the popular hobbies of its local people. These include golf, sailing, tennis and the "privacy-loving multigenerational families tucked into century-old shingled houses." Many of these are passed down in families for several generations. The New York Times notes that "Watch Hill impresses visitors with a strong sense of privacy and of discreetly used wealth—the rambling, old-fashioned, turreted and ginger-breaded Victorian summer houses with piazzas and softly rolling lawns have little in common with the overpowering castles of the very rich in Newport, a place rarely mentioned in Watch Hill even though it is barely 30 miles distant."