COHASSET /Whitney Woods
Whitney Woods: So close, so far away

By BARRY SMITH
For The Patriot Ledger Area: 10.06 square miles

POPULATION
2000: 7,261
2007: 7,525

Density: 763 res./square mile
Median age: 43
Median household income: $100,938

FINANCES
Tax rate: $10.50
Town budget: $35.3 million
Avg. water/sewer bill: $1,450

HOUSING
Median home price
2006: $815,000
2007: $713,750 (114 through Dec.)
Median condo price
2006: $446,700
2007: $481,000 (20 through Dec.)

SCHOOLS
Number of students: 1,489
Number of teachers: 103
H.S. grads to 4-yr. college: 78%
H.S. grads to 2-yr. college: 8%
Median SAT score (2006): 1,637

The Whitney Woods Lane neighborhood of Cohasset is blessed by both a convenient location and country beauty.

The secluded neighborhood not far from busy Route 3A is graced by towering old pines and the adjacent Whitney and Thayer Woods reservation.

Jean Livingstone and her husband, William, and two school-age children live in the house farthest in on the lane. From the back deck of their stately five-bedroom center door Colonial, the view is of woods. It affords "360 degrees

of privacy," Jean Livingstone said.

Yet, she said, drive time is one minute to the Super Stop & Shop plaza, two minutes to the Deer Hill School and three minutes to the middle school-high school.

"Everywhere you go, you're very close," she said.

"You feel like you're totally away from the world, yet we're just a few minutes from stores," neighbor Barbara Field added. "And it's a wonderful group of neighbors."

Last summer, residents got together to improve the looks of the lane as it begins at King Street. They worked together cleaning out weeds and overgrowth and planting ornamental shrubbery.

"We were up there shoveling and working together as a neighborhood," resident Patty Smith said. "It is the best, best neighborhood in the world."

The neighbors meet socially on occasion during the year, Barbara Hoyler and other residents said.

The only negative that Hoyler can think of is that the salt ban on the street sometimes means slippery winter driving.

The fact it's not a through street makes it safe for youngsters.

"In the summer, you can see the young kids playing in the cul-de-sac," Ali Costa, 17, said.

"We love it for the kids," said Christopher Pyne, who has four children ages 3 to 8.

The Appletons, with four children 5 and younger at home, have a King Street address but are considered part of the Whitney Woods neighborhood.

Their red-trimmed vintage Colonial, which Paul Appleton dates to the 1720s, borders Whitney Woods Lane homes.

Longtime Jack Conway real estate company associate Mary Pecce sold the former Ketchum estate to developers Edward F. Murphy of Scituate and the late Dr. Patrick O. Morrissey of Cohasset in the 1980s.

Ellen McAuliffe Morrissey recalled that Mrs. Ketchum's home had beautiful gardens and specimen trees.

The generously spaced Whitney Woods Lane homes have lots ranging in size from just over two-thirds an acre to 2.4 acres.

Houses would be priced starting in the high $800,000s, real estate broker Chris D'Alessandro of the Jack Conway Cohasset office said.

"It's just a great spot," she said. The last sale she knows of was $876,000 in 2004, she said, and one home sold during 2003 for $1.26 million.

Barbara Field and her husband, David Curry, are original homeowners, having bought their expanded Cape-style home from builder Roland Leary in 1988.

"We think we'll be here forever," she said.