CityState : Reporter

Old Harbor , groused about a new policy that could restrict their access to water in emergency situations .

“ We are at the upper limit ,” Breunig says . “ July Fourth used to be this crazy day and you take a breath after it and say , ‘ We can get through the rest of the summer just fine .’ But now we have multiple peaks that rival or are higher than July Fourth .”

Housing prices are now into playgroundof-the-rich territory , posing a serious challenge for the year-round workforce . The School Department , for example , rents a house for administrators to share during the school year . Real estate agent Hanna Greenlee Martin says the pandemic boosted annual home sales by 50 percent and doubled sale prices .

“ The average selling price was about a million , and fifteen homes [ sold annually ] under a million . Now there is one home under a million , and the average selling price over the last two years has climbed up to closer to almost two million ,” she says . “ As a year-round islander , we aren ’ t the ones buying those homes . They are vacation homes . I ’ m raising a young family and wanting to own , but the majority of the market is not affordable .”

One thing that could have changed — but hasn ’ t — is Block Island ’ s beauty .

“ That sense of history is really something ,” says Eileen Miller , a poet and visual artist . “ The ocean is so clean . The air is so clean . The beach roses smell the same , with the honeysuckle and the salt air . It ’ s just as I remembered it at age thirteen , when I first fell in love with Block Island .”

On a late May morning , Keith Lang , one of Block Island ’ s active conservationists , picks his way around the boggy and furrowed trails of Rodman ’ s Hollow . A day ’ s worth of hard rain has washed out the path in places , but also encouraged the bayberry and greenbrier to muscle forward . Block Island , the rocky child of two glaciers , has a restless nature , kneeling into kettle ponds and rising to panoramic views of the Atlantic nibbling at the cliff bases . Rodman ’ s Hollow ’ s 230 acres offer visitors an opportunity to become topographically acquainted , listen to the red-winged blackbirds call and watch the long grasses shimmy to the tune called by the wind .

It is also the birthplace of the island conservation movement . In 1972 , Connecticut developers planned to build a

38 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l AUGUST 2023