In others, a bank may be willing to lend only with a larger down payment, or at a slightly higher interest rate and with a 15-year term. Right now, there are about five houses for sale in the Point. Some of the waterfront houses on the Point come with boat moorings. Another advantage for home-buyers in Gaspee is that their city taxes are reduced because they are assessed only on the value of their houses, not on the land they sit on. Houses are small in Gaspee Point, averaging around 750 square feet, guesses Lally.
Styles are individualistic, ranging from simple shotgun boxes to bungalows or Capes.
Most were built as summer camps in the late 1920s or as postwar housing in the late 1940s through about 1950, according to Brown. It was a whole way of life. Tents were widely available after the Spanish American War, and families would reserve the same site summer after summer. There were outhouses on the Point until the late 1940s, when the Browns put in a water system. In the '60s, a gas line was laid out to the Point.