FIRST, I BECOME AWARE OF THE LIGHT— NUDGING INSISTENTLY.

It brushes the tops of hay bales, rolled into tight spirals. It spreads out like butter across fields of fresh-cut grass baking in the sun, scenting the air in these deep southern reaches of Rhode Island. The drifting odor of a well-kept barn.

Sweet, dry, drying on this hot summer day in Tiverton.

Off to the west, light flicks across the water, sparkles in the deep dimples of salty Narragansett Bay. More fields unfurl down to the brine—an unexpected pairing that works, like salt and pepper. And now, driving deeper into a world of boats and barns, I am caught, suddenly, in a tangle of narrow roads channeled between stone walls of such height and artistry that by rights they could seek their own representation.

This is the Farm Coast. On a map, it is a blip, no bigger than a thumbnail, stretching from Tiverton down to Little Compton, then east into Massachusetts, to include Westport and Dartmouth. Up close, however, it is stamped with its own particular beauty: sudden bursts of meadow, shingled barns, blue water, and tidy rows of things green and growing.

Possibly potatoes. I spot a sign with a brown squiggle … I think it’s meant to be a spud. But the biggest, most exuberant crop seems to be farm stands. They are everywhere—such as Walker’s Roadside Stand, in Little Compton, where Coll Walker has been ensconced for 40 years, spilling out fresh-picked summer squash, round-faced sunflowers, fuzzy peaches.

I’ve heard about this stretch of farmland mingling with the coast for years. And now that I’m finally here, I discover something unexpected.

There’s no fanfare.

The farmers are farming. The fishermen are off gathering their fruits of the sea. Artists—a heap of them—are taking it all in and giving it back. There’s a lot of space. A quiet, wide-spreading feeling that makes it easy to take a deep breath.

It’s also gorgeous.

previous spread : The dual personality of the Farm Coast shines through in a sweeping view of Little Compton’s pastures and woodlands, left, and a shot of fishermen beginning their workday in Sakonnet Harbor.

opposite : A meander through Little Compton and Tiverton yields scenes largely unchanged by time: rolling fields scattered with hay bales, friendly cows, nodding wheat stalks, and weathered barns and stone walls.

Putting The Farm In Farm Coast

When I pull into Pardon Gray Preserve to meet Wayne Browning of the Tiverton Land Trust, there’s a painterly cast to the early-morning light sifting over the land, misty at the edges of the old Gray Family Historical Cemetery nestled into the fields.

Swaths of this 230-acre preserve, open to the public and owned by the trust, are freshly mown thanks to Bill Hathaway, a farmer who lives across the street. Besides mowing the fields, Bill collects antique farm equipment and displays it here. Lots of it. Even teenagers revel in the visuals, Wayne says. “They come to take their pre-prom photos. It’s their way of being proud of where they come from, of saying, This is what my town is like.”

The fields stretch on like summer, golden and green, but they’re also a measure of how locals feel about their farm legacy. “In the late 1990s, a developer had high hopes of putting in 120 homes,” recalls Bill, who then gestures at an inscribed stone slab. “The people named on that rock got together and raised $1.2 million to buy it.” Today, “we’re restoring it to good agricultural land,” he says proudly.

But right now, it’s a farmer’s waiting game, with a good stretch of sun needed to dry out the hay. In a few weeks, giant rolls of hay will dot the landscape. “Late afternoon, around 4 o’clock, when the sun’s at the right angle, people start slamming on their brakes. It really is a pretty sight.”

Which brings us to…

THIS LANDSCAPE IS ITS OWN KIND OF ARTWORK. WATER VIEWS SLIDE IN WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT THEM. ALSO WHERE YOU FULLY EXPECT THEM. AND WHO COULD HAVE IMAGINED SO MANY GAMBREL-ROOFED BARNS, RISING EVERYWHERE?

A Word About Art

Tiverton Four Corners, a short drive away, is hopping. An unlikely hotbed of activity, this speck on the landscape—more than 300 years in the making—is perfectly sized for New England’s tiniest state. Imagine a compact collection of 18th- and 19th-century buildings (roughly two dozen shops) clustered around a crossroads: the literal “four corners.” It’s been restored to captivating prettiness thanks to James and Rosalind Weir, who discovered the village in 1984 and renovated it for the next 30 years.

Food anchors two of the corners. Provender, housed in an 1876 Victorian dowager, is a bustling gourmet food shop with the feel of a beautifully styled country store: hydrangea blooms offsetting Chocolove artisanal chocolate. The famous Gray’s Ice Cream has a non-diminishing line every time I pass it. But this weekend in July also happens to be the annual South Coast Artists Open Studio Tour, with more than 50 artists and galleries to visit. “I come every year from Weston, Massachusetts, for this,” says a woman who’s puzzling over the tour map. “The artists are so friendly and eager to talk about their artwork.”

I duck into Arch Contemporary Ceramics for a quick chat with potter Charlie Barmonde, and I discover that my anonymous tipster was right. Antiques shops lure me down Puncatest Neck Road—the midcentury doodads, ’60s patio furniture, and salvaged shutters are a photographer’s dream.

But this landscape is its own kind of artwork. Water views slide in where you least expect them. Also where you fully expect them. And who could have imagined so many gambrel-roofed barns, rising everywhere?

Driving down Fogland Road, a long, cool tunnel of trees, I stop at Fogland Farm Studio, also on the art tour. The setting is an exceptionally beautiful farm, where Martha Mullen Taradesh’s seascapes hang in her shingled studio. A handsome barn sits beyond, three donkeys posing in a corral. Fields drift toward a distant tree line. The 1726 house stands sentinel. And a Guerrilla Girls manifesto—a welcome throwback to the ’80s—flutters on the studio door. Martha looks delighted when I mention it. Tenet no. 4 of The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist : “Knowing your career might pick up after you’re 80.”

I am on the artists’ Farm Coast, for sure—a fact punctuated with an exclamation point when I trip over the Art Café, in Little Compton.

Well-preserved 18th- and 19th-century buildings like this one set the tone for Tiverton Four Corners’ shopping scene.

Little Compton is roughly the size of a peanut. Its downtown consists of Wilbur’s General Store, a friendly place that’s been around for 100 years and magically expands when you step inside, traveling back for eight rooms and selling everything you can imagine. Next door, the Commons Lunch has, by all accounts, great chowder, but I’m intrigued by the slice of Jamaica attached to its hip: the Laughin’ Lobstah, a turquoise-trimmed shack showcasing jewelry, shells, and plastic pails.

There’s a library, a white-steepled church, and a green that’s half cemetery. It’s lovely and sleepy, and I heard a rumor that when The Witches of Eastwick was looking for a film location, Little Compton turned it down.

Also, a few paces from the center, there’s a stained glass sign: “The Art Café.” It turns out my fantasy café exists in the middle of nowhere, next door to a perfect 1700s Cape hung with Josie Arkins’s colorful encaustic paintings. The café is magical, accidental, strung with fairy lights, carpeted with worn Oriental rugs. “Arabian Nights” meets “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Except there’s also a freezer where Josie and her husband sell their own farm-raised Treaty Rock beef. A wild bunny hangs out under the apple tree. “And lately,” Josie says, “there’s been a chicken wandering through….”

Putting The Coast In Farm Coast

Did I mention how close everything is? (You can drive the entire Farm Coast in about an hour and a half—but why would you want to?) Or that it’s not a cliché to say there’s water everywhere?

In other words, if you want to sail—like the two guys launching a boat at Fogland Beach on the Sakonnet River, part of Narragansett Bay—it’s right here.

As for fishing—along a breakwater, say—there is riprap (new word for us landlubbers) beyond the Sakonnet Point Club, with views of Sakonnet Light and dizzying drops. I spot clusters of sturdy anglers lining the rocks, armed with poles. (Stop by one of the bait and tackle shops, like Riverside Marine, and you’ll get expert tips on where to go.)

But it’s hot today, so on to the cool stuff—starting with Horseneck Beach State Reservation, in Westport, Massachusetts, near the mouth of Buzzards Bay. First off, there are the Dunes; the uppercase is intentional, as these are serious dunes, like the ones you’d find in the Provincelands of Cape Cod. Traverse this sandscape, and you’ll find yourself on a beach that’s the tip of an 800-acre park on

FROM FAR LEFT : Visitors to Carolyn’s Sakonnet Vineyard in Little Compton sample vintages at the outdoor tasting bar; the welcoming interior of the Red Dory in Tiverton; the juicy raw ingredients for the vineyard’s wares; a sampling from the Red Dory menu, spotlighting local seafood ranging from squid to sea scallops to littleneck clams.