Jill P. Capuzzo

<h1>(Living In): With a thousand pieces of candy on hand, Nicolle and Joe Zawacki thought they were well prepared for their first Halloween in Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, having been warned that the three-bedroom home they bought six months earlier was on “the Halloween street.” But when a steady flow of 20 to 30 trick-or-treaters at a time began arriving at their door, the supply quickly ran out. They were relieved when Zawacki’s mother stopped by with her leftover candy.</h1>

Since then, Zawacki has taken off every Halloween from work to get ready for the big day.

“As soon as school gets out, everyone starts showing up — kids, their parents, people pulling wagons — and we are at the epicenter,” said Zawacki, 37, a sales vice president at Crackle Plus.

The Zawackis moved to the Bergen County borough of Ho-Ho-Kus in April 2016, after the birth of their son, when they realized they needed more space than their two-bedroom apartment in Hoboken provided. They bought their 1942 center-hall colonial for $750,000, and are now embarking on an extensive renovation following the recent birth of a daughter.

Zawacki was initially reluctant to give up her urban lifestyle in Hoboken, but said that Ho-Ho-Kus, about 20 miles north, immediately felt like home: “I loved the idea that the town was so small. I grew up on a farm in Iowa, where everyone knew everyone, and that’s how it is here.”

Eric Altamore was also drawn to Ho-Ho-Kus’ small-town atmosphere — as of the 2010 census, the population was just more than 4,000 — and to its natural beauty. The borough offered a stark contrast to his many years of renting on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

In 2014, he and his partner, Thomas Treadway, paid $549,000 for a four-bedroom 1960s split-level with an in-ground pool. They have since renovated the house into what Altamore, 46, called his “midcentury-modern dream.”

“It’s not pretentious, but it has everything you need. And what they didn’t have, we opened,” said Altamore, who started two businesses in Ho-Ho-Kus soon after moving there: a men’s salon and a vegan cafe. (He sold the cafe last year.)

Although welcoming to newcomers, Ho-Ho-Kus’ community is tight-knit, and many of its residents have spent their entire lives in the borough — growing up, marrying, raising children and watching them leave the house, only to see them return to raise their own families there.

Keith Rosazza was born and grew up in Ho-Ho-Kus and has served in the volunteer fire department for 23 years, alongside his father, George, who has been on the squad for 40 years. In 2011, Rosazza and his wife, Aja, bought their first home, in nearby Midland Park, New Jersey, but he continued to respond to fire emergencies in Ho-Ho-Kus. Three years ago, the couple moved back to Ho-Ho-Kus with their two children, buying a 1923 Tudor with three bedrooms for $775,000.

“Our whole life was centered around this town,” said Rosazza, 40, a real estate agent with Keller Williams who was named Ho-Ho-Kus’ fire chief last year. “My wife teaches at the school. My kids went to the Co-op Nursery, and we always wanted to get back to it. We were so happy to finally be able to call it home.”

What You’ll Find

Tucked between the larger Bergen County borough of Saddle River to the north and the village of Ridgewood to the south, the mostly residential Ho-Ho-Kus has a wide array of attractive houses and a picturesque downtown.

The 1.74-square-mile borough is bisected by Route 17, creating two distinct suburban settings.

On the west side of Route 17 are the borough’s public school, a commercial center and a train station. While the houses and lots tend to be smaller, the area is appealing to commuters and families with young children, who walk to school, as there is no school bus service.

On the east side of Route 17 are many of the borough’s largest homes, often on lushly landscaped lots of an acre or more, some of them abutting Saddle River or Brewster Pond. This side appeals more to second-home buyers and empty-nesters.

Downtown, pretty shops and restaurants line Sheridan Street and Franklin Turnpike (although there is no commercial activity along Route 17 in Ho-Ho-Kus, as there is in neighboring towns).

“Really, there’s not a bad neighborhood anywhere here,” said Caren White, an agent with Special Properties Real Estate Services who has lived in Ho-Ho-Kus for 40 years. Some areas, she noted, are more popular than others.

The Cheelcroft development, for instance — several dozen brick-and-stucco Tudors and colonials built on the west side in the 1930s by Harold W. Cheel — offers what she described as “the Cheel mystique.”

“You won’t find two houses that look alike,” White said. “They have smaller kitchens and bathrooms, but they command higher prices.”

What You’ll Pay

The point of entry in Ho-Ho-Kus is about $500,000, White said, which helps explain why young people often move away until they can afford to move back.

Of the 37 homes for sale in Ho-Ho-Kus in late June, the priciest was a 1910 Georgian-style house with six bedrooms and 5 1/2 bathrooms, on 4.4 acres with an in-ground pool, listed for $3.45 million; the least expensive was a three-bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom split-level, built in 1956 on 0.29 acres, listed for $490,000. There was also one four-bedroom, four-bathroom town house for sale in the small Normandy Court condominium development, listed for $999,950.

The median price of the 18 houses sold between January and May of this year was $751,800, compared with a median price of $877,400 for the 15 homes sold during the same period in 2018, according to the New Jersey Multiple Listing Service.

Although typically larger, properties on the east side tend to offer better value, said Christine Doherty, another agent with Special Properties. Last year, with their children nearly grown, Doherty and her husband, Paul, sold their 3,000-square-foot colonial near the school for $1.4 million and bought a 5,000-square-foot ranch house with a pool on an acre next to Brewster Pond for $1.315 million.

“We saw it as an opportunistic time to move,” she said. “None of the big houses on the east were selling, while people were overpaying per square foot on the town side.”

Community events drive the social life of Ho-Ho-Kus, many of them organized by the Contemporary Club, an 80-year-old women’s group that serves as a Welcome Wagon to help newcomers meet residents. The group also holds Easter egg hunts, hospital fundraisers, progressive dinners, a 5K race and a Halloween parade.

For the past eight years, hundreds of ticket holders have strolled the downtown streets during the Taste of Ho-Ho-Kus event in early June, sampling the wares of borough restaurants like the 18th-century Ho-Ho-Kus Inn &amp; Tavern, Cafe Amici and the Sicilian Sun. But much of the activity takes place in residential neighborhoods.

“It’s a town that pushes their kids to go outside,” said Alison White, who moved to Ho-Ho-Kus 11 years ago with her husband, Adam, Caren White’s son. “Everyone’s door is open, and someone’s always looking out for you.”

Students in prekindergarten through eighth grade attend the Ho-Ho-Kus Public School, a 1936 brick-faced structure that feels more like a private school, with wood floors and a fireplace in the kindergarten, and Chromebook laptops for all 604 students. Many preschoolers go to the Ho-Ho-Kus Waldwick Cooperative Nursery School.

High school students attend Northern Highland Regional High School in Allendale, with 1,359 students. Average SAT scores for 2017-18 were 625 in English and 643 in math, compared with state averages of 542 and 543. The high school has 22 Advanced Placement courses and 60 clubs, as well as an award-winning newspaper and literary magazine.

Private high school options include Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington for girls and Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell or Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey for boys.

Depending on the destination, commuters to New York City switch trains in Hoboken to continue to Wall Street, or in Secaucus to go to Penn Station. Both routes take about an hour.

The combined fare for the New Jersey Transit and PATH trains through Hoboken is $12.50 for a single ride, or $359 for a monthly pass; traveling through Secaucus costs $10.75 one way, or $310 monthly.

Short Line offers bus service to New York City from Route 17 in Ho-Ho-Kus; the trip takes about 35 to 40 minutes and costs $10.50 one way, or $255.90 for a 40-trip pass.

The Hermitage estate, a 14-room house museum, has a history that dates to the Revolutionary War, when it welcomed such guests as George Washington, James Monroe, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. During one visit, Burr fell in love with his hostess, Theodosia Prevost. After the war, he married her there and they lived in a house on the property for a short time. The house was remodeled in the 1840s and is now a National Historic Landmark.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/realestate/ho-ho-kus-nj-a-tight-knit-but-welcoming-community.html" link="null" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.

Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J.: A tight-knit but welcoming community

Since then, Zawacki has taken off every Halloween from work to get ready for the big day.

In the process, they got an additional 1,100 square feet of living space, 3 acres of land, a lower tax rate and the sense that they had moved to a rural setting that didn’t feel like New Jersey.

“Everyone’s so spread out,” said Anna Nadler, 55, a language tutor who regularly bicycles through town and went snowshoeing in Jockey Hollow park after a freshly fallen snow in early March. “I love that it feels like the country, but it’s sophisticated at the same time.”

With all three sons now out of the house, the Nadlers decided to downsize, but had no intention of leaving Harding Township. “This is my hometown,” Anna Nadler said, explaining their recent decision to buy a four-bedroom house on 3 acres for $1.2 million, and to put their five-bedroom, 4,828-square-foot house, on 4 1/2 acres, on the market for $1.895 million.

Home to industrialists, politicians and Fortune 500 executives, Harding Township has long been considered one of New Jersey’s most exclusive areas. Some families have been in this Morris County township of 3,800 residents for generations, and they have worked to preserve the historic and bucolic nature of the place. But change is afoot.

In the last several weeks, the governing body has received final approval on its latest affordable-housing plan. It has also reached an agreement to redevelop a beloved historic estate the township once sought to preserve, and set aside a piece of land in the historic center for a proposed 120-foot cell tower.

Mayor Christopher Yates said that on March 1 — almost four years after discussions began about how many affordable homes Harding Township needed to add to satisfy mandates by the state’s Fair Housing Act — court approval was received on a plan to build 176 units, just over half the original requirement of 350. Most of those homes will be built at the southern end of Route 202, the mayor said, where zoning allows for six to eight homes on an acre, compared to the 3-acre minimum zoning in most of the rest of the township.

To help reach the quota, 40 age-restricted units are expected to be built on the grounds of the former Hurstmont estate, a 20-acre property that is part of a larger tract of land recently designated as “an area in need of redevelopment.” Included in this tract is the 10-acre Glen Alpin estate, a 19th-century Gothic Revival structure, described at the time as a “historic and environmental gem,” that the township bought for $1.2 million in 2004 and planned to convert into a tourist destination. But the property proved too costly to restore, and the plan was scrapped.

“The building continued to deteriorate, and the cost quickly got well beyond what the town was willing to spend,” Yates said. Now the township is hoping to sell Glen Alpin, which has been designated as a redevelopment area, to a private buyer after other land-preservation obligations with the state are met.

There is also a cellphone tower that, if approved, will go up in the New Vernon section of the township, not far from the post office, something the mayor described as simply a matter of progress.

“We’re no longer the isolated little burg we once were,” he said. “But even with all these things coming, I don’t think Harding is going to change much.”

Horse-crossing signs are a common site in Harding Township, which covers more than 20 square miles. Many properties include permanent easements for the public horse trail that runs through much of the township.

Most of the homes are large and sit on lots of more than 3 acres, although there are two townhouse developments — Shadowbrook and Harding Green — along Route 202. In the Mount Kemble Lake community, 96 bungalows and cottages, some dating to the 1920s, sit on the banks of the lake.

There has been little new construction in Harding in recent years, the newest being 20 large homes at Hartley Farms, each on a 3-acre lot surrounded by open space, as part of a 25-year plan to develop a portion of a 171-acre estate once owned by the Dodge family.

Many of Harding’s homes have their own septic systems and wells. The minimal public water service, along with volunteer-staffed public services and the absence of a high school, helps keep property tax rates significantly lower than those in surrounding areas.

Because the post offices that serve the township are in neighboring towns or in New Vernon — a desirable, unincorporated community in the center of Harding, which virtually anyone can use as a mailing address by renting a postal box — virtually no one receives mail addressed to Harding Township.

“Most people who live in town have a post office box,” said Gerry-Jo Cranmer, an agent with Turpin Realtors. “It gives them a good excuse to stop by and chat.”

The entry point for a home in most parts of Harding is north of $1 million.

As of mid-March, there were 37 homes on the market, with an average asking price of $2.3 million. The highest-priced listing was just under $5 million for a 7,215-square-foot house built in 1990 on 6 1/2 acres; the lowest was a three-bedroom 1932 colonial on a half-acre, listed for $499,000. There is also a 20-room house on 32 acres owned by the family of Peter Frelinghuysen Jr., a former congressman who died in 2011, on the market for $3.75 million.

According to the Garden State Multiple Listing Service, 45 houses sold in Harding Township in 2018, at an average price of $1.527 million; in 2017, 56 homes sold, at an average price of $1.395 million.

Jennifer Pollaro, 39, who moved to Harding Township in 2010, said she likes to take her daughter, Eleanora, 2, and son, Frankie, 4, on guided nature walks in the 7,768-acre Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, and to the weekly story hour at the all-volunteer Kemmerer Library.

“We love the big, wide-open space here, where you’re not on top of each other,” she said. “The properties are large and provide privacy, but we also have big backyards where we can have great summer parties.”

Volunteerism is big in Harding. Along with the library, the two fire departments, in New Vernon and Green Village, are staffed entirely by volunteers, as is the first-aid squad in New Vernon. The Harding Land Trust, a nonprofit group, focuses on land preservation and water protection.

The New Vernon Volunteer Fire Department holds two big fundraisers every year — an auction in September and a lobster-and-steak dinner in June — that draw so many visitors, there isn’t enough room for them all to park, so they have to be bused in, said Tawnya Kabnick, an agent with Coldwell Banker, who lives in the Mount Kemble Lake area.

There is little commercial activity in Harding, but Bernardsville, Basking Ridge, Madison and Morristown are all about a 10-minute drive away.

The Harding Township School serves 315 students from prekindergarten through eighth grade. With so few students, residents say, it operates almost like a private school, with abundant individualized attention.

After that, students can attend Madison High School, which offers 18 Advanced Placement courses to its 830 students. In the 2016-17 school year, students scored an average of 621 in the reading and writing portion of the SATs and 616 in math, compared to state averages of 551 and 552.

But many Harding families opt instead for one of the prestigious private schools in the area, including the Pingry School, in Basking Ridge; Morristown-Beard and the Delbarton School, in Morristown; and the Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child and the Kent Place School, in Summit.

Driving into Manhattan, about 35 miles east, during rush hour can take over an hour.

Harding does not have its own train station, so commuters take New Jersey Transit trains from stations in Bernardsville, Morristown, Madison or Chatham. Travel times and costs vary: A direct train from Chatham to New York City takes about 50 minutes and costs $10.75 one way or $310 for a monthly pass; a train from Bernardsville with one stop takes 80 to 100 minutes, and costs $15 one way or $436 a month.

During what has been called the “hard winter” of 1779-80, Henry Wick’s 1,400-acre Jockey Hollow farm served as campgrounds for George Washington and the Continental Army, which cut down some 600 trees to build cabins and provide fuel for fires. More than 100 soldiers died and are buried on the property north of the Wick House — which is also where Wick’s daughter, Temperance, hid her horse from mutinous soldiers who tried to steal it from her, thus becoming a young hero of the Revolutionary War.

Harding township, NJ a historic place that feels like the country

Anna and Jim Nadler moved to Harding Township in 2014, from Kinnelon, New Jersey, to be closer to their youngest son’s private school in neighboring Morristown.

Harding township, N.J.: a historic place that feels like the country

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Jill P. Capuzzo

Articles written by the author

Ho-Ho-Kus, N.J.: A tight-knit but welcoming community

Harding township, N.J.: a historic place that feels like the country