Susan Hodara

“We couldn’t afford Fairfield County,” Walsh, 73, recalled. “So we just kept driving up 95.”

They landed in Orange, where they rented a two-bedroom, Cape Cod-style house. In 1971, they bought a three-bedroom ranch. “We’d had a third baby,” Walsh said. “By then, we could afford to buy.”

When they divorced in 1985, Walsh kept the house. After remarrying five years later, she continued to live there with her new husband, Baxter Walsh.

Before the couple retired, Patricia Walsh worked as an executive at United Healthcare in Hartford, and Baxter Walsh, 83, owned a technology company in Fairfield. When it came time to downsize, they didn’t want to leave Orange.

In August 2015, the Walshes bought a 1,700-square-foot, two-bedroom condominium in Fieldstone Village, a 55-and-over community, for $457,000.

“We love the small-town feel,” Patricia Walsh said of Orange. “It’s a close-knit, friendly community.”

It was that close-knit, friendly community — along with the good school system — that convinced Angela and Robert Craft to remain in Orange when they, like the Walshes, were ready to buy a home after renting. Angela Craft, 42, is a neonatal nurse practitioner at Yale New Haven Hospital, and Robert Craft, 40, is a sales executive at an asset management company. The couple, who have a 5-year-old daughter and a 17-year-old son, also own the soon-to-open Kennedy’s of Fairfield, a men’s grooming franchise that includes a women’s spa.

The Crafts spent two years house hunting in the area. “But as we lived here and got to know people and everything the town offers,” Angela Craft said, “we decided to stay and wait for the right house.”

In October 2016, they paid $855,000 for a five-bedroom, 4,650-square-foot house built in 1995 on a cul-de-sac, with 2.59 acres and a pool.

Orange’s nearly 14,000 residents live on tree-lined streets laid out among meadows, forests and working farms. A picturesque green in the town center is surrounded by historic homes, some dating to the 18th century.

But there is plenty of 21st-century commerce. Running through the western half of town, Route 15 has two Orange exits. Interstate 95 cuts across the town’s southeastern tip, parallel to Boston Post Road, a busy corridor of big-box stores, restaurants and businesses (including one of only two international headquarters of PEZ Candy). And there are two Metro-North stations nearby.

James M. Zeoli, Orange’s first selectman and a lifelong resident, touted the town’s attractions: easy accessibility, various shopping and dining options, strong schools, green space, welcoming nature. “It’s a comfortable place to raise a family,” he said.

What You’ll Find

Orange is primarily residential, with retail and industry confined mainly to the southeastern corner. The town has more than 1,100 acres of open space, Zeoli said, where meandering stone walls once demarcated pastures.

There are 4,683 single-family homes, many of them ranch-style, built in the 1950s and 1960s, when Orange was growing as a suburb of New Haven and Bridgeport. There are 25 two-family homes, as well as 245 condominiums in five complexes and 257 rental apartments in four buildings, some of them designated as affordable. There are no cooperative complexes.

What You’ll Pay

Barbara Lehrer, an agent with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage and an Orange resident for 60 years, noted the range of home prices. “You can spend around $300,000 for a small house that needs work,” she said. “A nice house that doesn’t need work will be around $550,000. Newer, larger houses sell anywhere from $750,000 to over $1 million.”

As for the market, she said, “It’s hopping. We get multiple offers every day.”

Beth Cantor, an agent with Calcagni Real Estate, in North Haven, agreed that the pace of sales is growing. “The ‘days on market’ is much shorter than in previous years,” she said. “Sales-wise, this spring has been the most exciting in a while.”

According to information from SmartMLS, Inc., as of May 13 there were 45 single-family homes on the market. The least expensive was a three-bedroom, 1,461-square-foot Cape Cod-style house, built in 1947 on 0.35 acres, listed for $245,000; the priciest was a six-bedroom, 9,500-square-foot, gated estate with a pool, hot tub and guesthouse, built in 1988 on 5.35 acres, listed for $1.799 million.

The median sale price for a single-family home during the 12-month period ending May 13 was $375,000, up from $352,165 during the previous 12 months.

Angela Craft described Orange as “family-friendly” and “unpretentious.” Residents are a mix of young professionals raising children, and older people, some of whom never left and others who came to be close to children and grandchildren.

The range of housing costs reflects the town’s socioeconomic blend. As for religious diversity, Orange has seven churches, three synagogues, a mosque and a Hindu temple.

Residents gather for events like the Memorial Day parade and, in December, a tree-lighting ceremony on the green. The High Plains Community Center has a fitness center, an eight-lane indoor pool, ball fields, tennis courts, a playground and a senior center. The surrounding 20-plus-acre fairground is the site of the Orange Community Farmers Market, a summer concert series, the Volunteer Fire Department’s annual carnival and the popular Orange Country Fair.

Hikers have 18 miles of trails to explore, while Wright’s Pond offers fishing and ice skating. The culturally inclined can enjoy performances by the Orange Players at the community center, or head to the theaters and museums in New Haven, about 8 miles east.

Orange’s students attend Mary L. Tracy School for prekindergarten and kindergarten, and Peck Place School, Race Brook School or Turkey Hill School for first through sixth grade. All four are part of the Orange Public Schools district.

For middle and high school, Orange is served by Amity Regional District No. 5, which also serves the towns of Bethany and Woodbridge. Students in seventh and eighth grade attend the Orange campus of Amity Middle School (there is also a Bethany campus), then move on to Amity Regional High School, in Woodbridge.

On the 2017-18 Smarter Balanced assessments, 79.7% of Orange’s sixth-graders met English language arts proficiency standards and 78.4% met math proficiency standards, compared to 54.3% and 43.9% statewide. Mean SAT scores for Amity Regional High School’s 2018 graduating class were 594 in evidence-based reading and writing, and 587 in math; statewide means were 535 and 519.

Commuters to Manhattan, 70 miles southwest, can catch Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven line at Milford or West Haven, a few miles away. (West Haven, the line’s newest station, was added in 2013.) Peak trains to and from Grand Central Terminal take about 90 minutes to two hours; monthly fare is $449 from Milford or $500 from West Haven.

Residents who prefer to drive, or who work in nearby cities, have quick access to Route 15 and Interstate 95, but often face rush-hour congestion.

Those who attend the annual Orange Country Fair, taking in the pig races, tractor pulls and other agriculture-themed activities, may not be aware of the event’s origins. The town’s first agricultural fair, in September 1898, filled the green with horse races, ox draws and displays of produce, livestock and crafts. The fair was held every year until 1912, when interest faded.

In 1975, a new fair was planned to commemorate the bicentennial. Conceived by a committee of townspeople and modeled on the 4-H fairs of their youth, the event was held behind the Mary L. Tracy School and was called the Orange Bicentennial Old Time Country Fair. In 1980, committee members cleared the land that became the current fairgrounds, where the fair has been held since.

“Pretty much everybody in Orange goes,” said Priscilla Searles, the town historian and a member of the original committee, who has lived in Orange since 1960. “It has always been an event that brings the town together.”

People who move to Orange, Connecticut, a roughly 17-square-mile suburb in southwestern New Haven County, tend to stay. Consider Patricia Walsh, who arrived in 1966, when her first husband found a job in Westport.

Orange, Conn.: A farm town for families

This past February, they bought another house in town, which they are renovating. Yet despite owning property and a business in Sharon, the Abuts spend the bulk of the week in Manhattan, where they have full-time jobs and rent a one-bedroom on the Upper West Side.

Like more than a third of Sharon’s approximately 2,700 residents, the Abuts are weekenders. On weekdays, Brian Abut, 51, works in software sales and Tracey Abut, 47, is a human resources executive. Fed up with sweltering city summers, they decided to look for a weekend place. “We wanted a quick getaway that we could enjoy for the entire year,” Brian Abut said.

After they searched unsuccessfully in upstate New York, a friend suggested Connecticut and recommended a broker in Sharon. There, the Abuts were drawn to the pastoral surroundings and the deep sense of history.

“Sharon is a picture-perfect New England town,” Brian Abut said. “But it’s right on the New York border and only 15 minutes from Metro-North.”

For their first house — a 1,600-square-foot, three-bedroom Craftsman, built in 1962 on 1.5 acres — they paid $425,000. For their second — a 2,100-square-foot, four-bedroom midcentury modern house, built in 1966 on a more remote 1.6 acres — they paid $160,000. “It’s a fixer-upper,” Abut said, “a midcentury enthusiast’s dream.”

With its postcard vistas and country roads, the 59.6-square-mile Sharon is the third-largest town in Connecticut, but one of the least densely populated. It adjoins the towns of Kent, Cornwall and Salisbury, and is bordered by the Housatonic River to the east and Dutchess County, New York, to the west.

Brent Colley, Sharon’s first selectman, touted the town’s demographic mix: “We have a bit of everything: part-timers; full-timers; people who have been here for generations; retirees; farmers; artists, writers and architects who work from home; large estate owners; people employed by the large estate owners.” Some residents, he said, work at Sharon Hospital, the town’s largest employer.

Colley noted an interdependence between part-timers and full-timers, with weekenders sustaining the town’s economy and locals providing services. “It’s a partnership,” he said. “The weekenders tend to have higher-end homes and larger properties, which allows people in the middle class to enjoy lower taxes. Without the weekenders, we wouldn’t have what we have.”

What Sharon has is a character that blends a Yankee work ethic with a cosmopolitan sensibility, and a commitment to preserving the town’s history, fostering its artistic community and protecting its natural beauty.

“There’s a small-town simplicity here that caters to a wide range of interests,” Colley said. “All kinds of people live here for all kinds of reasons, but everyone appreciates the calm and quiet.”

— What You’ll Find

Sharon is rich with rolling hills and rocky woodlands. Stacy Deming, the Housatonic Valley Association’s geographic information system manager, said about 35% of the town — more than 13,400 acres — is permanently protected by organizations like the Sharon Land Trust, Housatonic State Forest and Housatonic Meadows State Park.

Sharon’s heart is its town green, one of the largest in New England at more than a mile long. The green is home to the town hall, the Sharon Historical Society, the elegant Hotchkiss Library of Sharon and a stone clock tower erected in the 1880s.

Aside from a small shopping center and a handful of working farms, the rest of Sharon is residential. House hunters will find assorted styles, among them colonials, farmhouses and, lining the green, well-maintained 18th- and 19th-century antique homes. Patricia Braislin, Sharon’s assessor, said there are 1,457 single-family homes, 14 multifamily homes, 30 condominiums in three complexes, 13 rental apartments in one building and 32 affordable-housing units.

— What You’ll Pay

Chris Garrity, a broker and vice president of Bain Real Estate, said that depending on size, acreage and condition, homes in Sharon can range in price from less than $200,000 to the millions. “And those houses might be on the same road,” he said.

He added that when you cross the border from New York into Connecticut, “your taxes decrease considerably.”

Graham Klemm, president of Klemm Real Estate (and the Abuts’ broker), said the market in Sharon is strong. “We have plenty of buyers coming in. What we are lacking is inventory, at all the price points.”

According to SmartMLS, as of April 8 there were 56 single-family homes on the market. The least expensive was a one-bedroom, 795-square-foot log cabin, built in 1935 on a 1/2 acre, listed for $145,000; the priciest was a five-bedroom, 8,900-square-foot restored colonial, built in 1800 and part of a 51.3-acre estate, listed for $20 million. There were also three two-bedroom condominiums on the market, priced at $185,000, $191,000 and $197,500; and a four-bedroom multifamily house listed for $339,900.

The median sale price for a single-family home during the 12-month period ending April 8 was $320,750, down from $420,000 during the previous 12 months.

While Sharon is a sleepy place where residents — especially weekenders — relish the peacefulness of their homes, those looking for recreation have options. Water lovers can swim at the Mudge Pond Town Beach, launch a small craft from the Silver Lake State Park boat launch, and fish and raft in the Housatonic River. Hikers can explore more than 50 miles of trails, including a stretch of the Appalachian Trail.

The town green continues its tradition as a gathering spot, holding events such as a summer concert series, an arts-and-crafts fair and a holiday tree- and menorah-lighting ceremony. An annual Art Walk features stops at open studios, galleries like Standard Space, and exhibitions inside the library, town hall and historical society.

Sharon Playhouse, now in its 60th season, stages year-round events, including its popular summer productions in a 353-seat theater. This season, “Crazy for You” opens in June.

A spirit of giving galvanizes both the Sharon Classic Road Race, which supports Sharon Day Care, and Trade Secrets, a garden-themed weekend benefiting Women’s Support Services in town.

In addition to tapas at The Edward, diners can order barbecue at When Pigs Fly South, breakfast and lunch at J.P. Gifford’s Café, and Italian food at Dining Alfresco. There are more restaurants in neighboring towns and a cinema in Millerton, New York, 6 miles northwest.

Sharon is served by Regional School District No. 1, which also serves the towns of Salisbury, Cornwall, Kent, Falls Village/Canaan and North Canaan. Each town has its own school for kindergarten (and, in some cases, prekindergarten) through eighth grade; this year in Sharon, 113 students in kindergarten through eighth grade attend Sharon Center School.

Karen Manning, the principal, said the school is facing declining enrollment. “Many young families can’t afford to live here, and weekenders don’t use the school system,” she said. “It is our biggest issue.”

On the 2018 Smarter Balanced assessments, Manning said, 61% of fourth-graders met or exceeded English language arts proficiency standards and 50% met or exceeded math proficiency standards, compared to 55% and 51.3% statewide.

District students converge at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, in Falls Village. According to data from the Connecticut Department of Education’s EdSight, mean SAT scores for the 2019 graduating class were 522 in evidence-based reading and writing, and 492 in math; statewide equivalents were 516 and 503.

Notable private schools in the area include Hotchkiss, Kent and Marvelwood.

About 100 miles northeast of Manhattan, Sharon is not usually considered a commuter town. Those heading to the city can take the Taconic State Parkway or Route 22 to Interstate 684. Alternatively, they can catch Metro-North Railroad at Wassaic, the final stop on the Harlem line, in Amenia, New York. Through trains take a little more than two hours; round-trip fares cost $52.50 peak, $39 off-peak and $536 monthly.

Between the mid-18th century and the close of the 19th century, Sharon was a hotbed of industry. The now-quiet Sharon Valley, at the town’s western edge, was a hub for the production of iron, thanks to an abundance of necessary resources: water to provide power; trees to make charcoal; limestone, quarried nearby; and high quality iron ore, mined and smelted with chunks of limestone. Sharon was also a manufacturing center for wrought- and cast-iron products, from household and farming tools to railroad wheels and munitions used during the Civil War.

Today, across from Webatuck Creek, a cube-like stone structure stands about 20 feet tall. Once the foundation of the Sharon Valley Lime Kiln, constructed circa 1880 to convert limestone into calcined lime, it is the town’s most intact vestige of an earlier era.

In 2016, Brian and Tracey Abut bought their first home in Sharon, a bucolic town in northwest Litchfield County, Connecticut. A year later, they opened The Edward, a wine bar near the town green.

A peaceful, easy feeling, just 15 minutes from the train

<h1>But she had to wait. Fasano, 36, works in product marketing in Stamford, Connecticut. Her husband, Frank Fasano, 37, is an orthopedic physician assistant in Somers, New York. </h1>

Nine years ago, when they decided to move out of their rental apartment in Ridgefield, Connecticut, and buy a house, Frank Fasano, a Staten Island native, was appalled by the property taxes in Westchester County. So they landed in Danbury, Connecticut, where their daughter, now 5, and son, 2, were born.

Still, Thornwood beckoned. “I told my husband, ‘I’m going back,'” Meredith Fasano said. “'I don’t know when, but I’m going back.'”

Fasano’s “when” came last year. “Our daughter was starting kindergarten in the fall,” she said, “and we wanted to be in a better school district.”

So they began looking. Aside from Thornwood, they ventured a few miles north to Chappaqua and Mount Kisco, but all the houses they saw needed upgrades. “I felt that if I had to put work into a house, I’d rather it be in Thornwood than someplace I’m not familiar with and where I don’t have family ties,” Fasano said.

In January 2018, the Fasanos paid $715,000 for a 2,500-square-foot, three-bedroom, split-level house, built in 1970 on 1 acre. After some renovating, they moved in, in April. “We live in a cute little neighborhood on a cul-de-sac,” she said.

Their cul-de-sac is a couple of minutes from her parents, who help care for the couple’s children. And it is the same street Fasano’s aunt once lived on.

“I used to visit my cousins there,” she said. “I tell my kids, ‘Mommy used to ride her bike over here.'”

Thornwood is a 1.1-square-mile hamlet in the town of Mount Pleasant, in central Westchester County. Its approximately 4,000 residents are a mix of families like Fasano’s, who have been there for generations, and newcomers, often with young children.

They live on leafy streets with a preponderance of first names — from Linda Avenue to Gerald Place and Allison Lane — and a few that honor poets, including Milton Drive and Keats Road. While predominantly white, Thornwood’s population has some socioeconomic diversity. As James J. Timmings, the Mount Pleasant assessor, put it: “There are some high-end properties and some lower-end properties, but overall it’s pretty solidly middle class.”

Carl Fulgenzi, Mount Pleasant’s supervisor, said a master plan is being developed to revitalize the town’s hamlets. Goals in Thornwood include rezoning to encourage improvements in the grittier commercial areas and adding more sidewalks to boost walkability. The plan should be completed later this spring, Fulgenzi said, adding: “You are going to see some major changes within the next five years.”

Just off the Saw Mill River Parkway, in Thornwood’s northwest corner, lies a commercial intersection called Four Corners, the site of two gas stations, a restaurant and a Walgreens. Steps away is Town Center at Thornwood, a shopping center anchored by a ShopRite supermarket. A mile and a half from there is the hamlet’s second large strip mall, Rose Hill Shopping Center.

Otherwise, Thornwood is primarily residential, its sometimes hilly streets lined with colonials, Capes and ranches, many expanded or rebuilt. Rita Longo, an associate broker with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty, said parcels are smaller in the western part of the hamlet, where “you’ll find more starter homes.”

Timmings said Thornwood has nearly 1,400 single-family homes, including two townhouse developments, and 48 two- and three-family homes. The only condominiums are in a 27-unit complex called Kensico Arms, a converted school. There are no co-op or rental buildings.

“Some people think Westchester is too expensive unless you go farther north,” said Tara Siegel, an agent at Houlihan Lawrence who works in partnership with Jordie Wilk. “But Thornwood offers affordable options and a great commute.”

Prices start in the $200,000s for condominiums, she said, with modest houses to the west in the $300,000s and $400,000s. Elsewhere, she said, “a lot of the homes will be in the $500,000s, $600,000s and $700,000s, and there are areas of high-end homes that will go for over $1 million.”

Sales of Thornwood’s pricier homes have slowed, Longo said, possibly because of changes in the tax laws. But “anything under $750,000 is hot,” she added. “Inventory is low, and when a home is priced right, it can generate multiple offers, and you can get close to and occasionally over asking.”

According to the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service, as of March 4, there were 12 single-family homes on the market in Thornwood, from a two-bedroom, 1,100-square-foot ranch, built in 1956 and listed for $384,500, to a five-bedroom, 5,550-square-foot colonial, built in 1928 and listed for $1.15 million.

The median sale price for a single-family home during the 12-month period ending March 4 was $575,000, down from $590,000 the previous 12 months.

Thornwood is an unpretentious place, small enough that neighbors know one another. They may meet at the 7-acre James M. Carroll Park, on the playground or ball field, enjoying town-sponsored summertime concerts or picnicking by Leith’s Pond, where fishing and ice skating are permitted.

Residents are part of the larger Mount Pleasant community, gathering at school sports events, the annual Mount Pleasant Day and the Mount Pleasant Community Center, a 12-acre complex with four pools and a branch of the Mount Pleasant Public Library.

Diners have choices, including Italian and Asian restaurants, the family-friendly gastro pub The Barley House, and the Thornwood Coach diner.

A few miles away, in Pleasantville, cinephiles will find the renowned Jacob Burns Film Center, and nature lovers can explore the 1,425-acre Rockefeller State Park Preserve.

Nearly all of Thornwood is served by the Mount Pleasant Central School District, which also serves the hamlet of Hawthorne and portions of the hamlet of Valhalla and the village of Pleasantville. A small section of Thornwood with about 50 houses is zoned for the Byram Hills Central School District, in Armonk.

The Mount Pleasant district’s roughly 2,000 students attend Hawthorne Elementary for kindergarten through second grade, Columbus Elementary for grades three through five, Westlake Middle School for sixth through eighth grade, and Westlake High School. With the exception of Hawthorne Elementary, the schools are in Thornwood, where the middle and high schools share a campus. The middle school offers the International Baccalaureate Middle Years program; the high school has a three-year science research program and holds an annual science fair.

On the 2017-18 state assessments, 68 percent of the district’s fourth-graders were proficient in math and 68 percent were proficient in English Language Arts; statewide equivalents were 48 and 47 percent. Mean SAT scores for the 2018 graduating class were 600 in evidence-based reading and writing and 570 in math; statewide means were 534 and 534.

Commuters to Manhattan, 30 miles southwest, have easy access to the Saw Mill River and Taconic Parkways. Or they can catch Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem line at the nearby Hawthorne station. Peak trains take 44 to 54 minutes to get to the city; monthly fare is $311. (Thornwood had its own station until the 1980s, when the railroad transitioned from diesel to electricity; a track curve made construction of a newly required raised platform impractical, so the stop was eliminated.)

Three decades ago, a giant hole gaped near the Four Corners intersection, 600 feet wide and 200 feet deep. It was the ghost of a former marble quarry that began operating in 1845 and became one of Thornwood’s first industries. Known as Snowflake Lime Works for the whiteness of its stone, the quarry thrived for decades, supplying marble for the likes of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan and the U.S. Custom House in New Orleans. The quarry ceased operation and was sold in the early 1970s. In 1985, the hole was filled with rocks and paved over. It is now Town Center, where, behind the shops, a vertical wall of stone is a reminder of the past.

A neighborly westchester hamlet with leafy streets

Meredith Fasano had her heart set on living in Thornwood, New York. It was where she grew up, and where her parents still lived. “I knew it was a safe community, a good community, with strong schools,” she said.

A neighborly Westchester hamlet with leafy streets

<h1>When Jason Figueroa was a teenager in the Bronx, he spent time visiting a family friend in Putnam Valley, a sleepy town in southwestern Putnam County, just across the border from Westchester, New York. The friend lived in Highfields, the only townhouse development there, and Figueroa found the place so peaceful and friendly that he was determined to move there one day.</h1>

“It was my escape,” he said. “Highfields was the No. 1 place I wanted to live.”

Figueroa, 34, now works as a doorman in Manhattan. His wife, Michelle Hernandez, 35, is a saleswoman at a jewelry store in the Bronx. They came close to fulfilling Figueroa’s dream in 2013, when they moved to Putnam Valley with their son, who was then 3, trading their Bronx rental for a two-bedroom ranch.

The house, which they bought for $190,000, was not in Highfields. “It was a great starter home,” Figueroa said. “And I knew the market would eventually go up, and I could easily sell it.”

Five years later, that’s what happened. After finding a property for sale in Highfields and making an offer, he and Hernandez sold their house for $275,000. In December, the family moved into a three-story, 2,600-square-foot townhouse with one bedroom, which they bought for $320,000. It was built in 1995, on a corner lot — “the quietest spot in the complex,” Figueroa said.

“Quiet” is a good way to describe the 41-square-mile Putnam Valley. You could also call it “rugged” or “rustic.” The town’s roughly 11,700 residents live amid rocky slopes and huge boulders left by retreating glaciers. Hilly roads snake through forests lined with 200-year-old stone walls, beside pastures where horses graze, and around numerous ponds and lakes.

A good portion of the 14,086-acre Clarence Fahnestock Memorial State Park lies in Putnam Valley, along with about 1,000 acres of protected land owned by the town and the Hudson Highlands Land Trust. “We are trying to preserve as much as we can,” said Sam Oliverio Jr., the town supervisor and a lifelong resident.

Nevertheless, there are construction projects under consideration, including a hotel and conference center, of which Oliverio approves. “It would bring jobs and some relief to our taxpayers,” he said.

Socioeconomically, Oliverio said, “we run the gamut from very poor to very wealthy. Mainly, though, it’s a white-collar commuter town, with lawyers, doctors and accountants who work in White Plains and the city. And we have a lot of tradespeople — carpenters, plumbers, electricians — who work locally. It’s a real blend.”

He called Putnam Valley “fiscally conservative but socially progressive, with thriving racially diverse and LGBT populations.”

Figueroa called the town “old-timey”: “It reminds me of those old-fashioned places I’ve seen in movies, where everybody knows everybody, everybody helps each other out,” he said. “That’s what I love about it.”

Sheryl Luongo, the Putnam Valley assessor, said the town has roughly 4,800 single-family homes. The three major lakes — Lake Peekskill in the southwest corner, Roaring Brook Lake to the northeast and Lake Oscawana, the largest, in the middle — are the hubs of once summer-only, now year-round communities consisting primarily, but not entirely, of modest homes.

Elsewhere, houses are more spread out, a mix of colonials, contemporaries, farmhouses, ranches and a few log chalets. There are some developments of bigger homes on larger lots, built in the 1990s and 2000s, and several older homeowner associations, like Floradan Estates, as well as the townhouses in Highfields.

“It’s not your cookie-cutter suburb,” said Christine Rowley, an associate broker with RE/MAX Classic Realty.

Deborah Glatz, a saleswoman at Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, said homes in Putnam Valley range from around $250,000 for a small cottage to more than $1 million for a lakefront property and upward of $2 million for an estate. “There’s value here,” she said. “You can get more house than you can in Westchester, and taxes are lower.”

Recently, the market has been strong, Rowley said: “I have had a lot of bidding wars over the past year, with sellers getting close to full price, and occasionally above.”

Inventory has decreased, Glatz noted, and prices have gone up. “It is still a seller’s market,” she said. “But that may shift if an abundance of homes comes on the market in the spring.”

According to information from the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service, there were 50 single-family homes on the market in late January, from a 757-square-foot, one-bedroom cottage, built in 1954 on 0.14 acres, listed for $199,000, to a 5,786-square-foot, four-bedroom lakefront colonial, built in 2004 on 29.57 acres, for $2.95 million.

The median sale price for a single-family home during the 12-month period ending Jan. 28 was $340,000, up from $338,000 during the previous 12 months.

For a rural, predominantly residential town, Putnam Valley has its share of recreational and social options. People who live around the lakes can ice skate in the winter and swim, fish and boat during the summer. Residents congregate at Leonard Wagner Memorial Park for summer concerts, holiday celebrations and the annual Town Day. The park has ball fields, tennis courts, nature trails, a roller-hockey rink and a pavilion, and is the site of a county-run senior center.

The culturally inclined can attend student- and community-run events at the high school’s 575-seat performing arts center and assorted activities held by the Tompkins Corners Cultural Center at the historic Tompkins Corners United Methodist Church. Hudson Valley MOCA, a contemporary art museum in Peekskill, is a few miles away.

Hikers will find miles of trails in Fahnestock park and the Hudson Highlands Land Trust’s 358-acre Granite Mountain Preserve.

Putnam Valley has a restaurant, Brookside Grille, a sprinkling of delis and pizzerias, and a tiny commercial area known as Oregon Corners. Shopping is plentiful in neighboring Cortlandt and Yorktown, in Westchester County.

All of Putnam Valley is served by the Putnam Valley Central School District, which also serves a small section of Cortlandt. The district’s approximately 1,700 students attend Putnam Valley Elementary School for kindergarten through fourth grade; Putnam Valley Middle School for fifth through eighth grade; and Putnam Valley High School for ninth through 12th grade. The middle and high schools share a campus.

On the 2017-18 state assessments, 72 percent of the district’s fourth-graders were proficient in math and 57 percent were proficient in English language arts; statewide equivalents were 48 percent and 47 percent. Mean SAT scores for the 2018 graduating class were 558 in evidence-based reading and writing and 577 in math; statewide equivalents were 534 and 534.

At the high school, the International Baccalaureate program is expected to be introduced in the fall. District residents recently approved a $14.81 million bond for projects including renovation of the middle school and construction of a wellness center on the campus. Frances Wills, superintendent of schools, said the bond will not increase taxes and called the vote “a statement of confidence that the school district is looking at the community and what it needs.”

Commuters to Manhattan, around 50 miles south, can drive about 15 minutes to catch Metro-North Railroad’s Hudson line at Peekskill or, during rush hour, take a county-operated shuttle to and from Leonard Wagner Memorial Park. Peak trains take 57 to 63 minutes; the monthly fare is $369.

Some residents drive farther down the line to the Cortlandt or Croton-Harmon station, where the ride is shorter and parking easier. The monthly fare from Cortlandt is $369, and from Croton-Harmon it’s $311.

Those who choose to drive to the city have quick access to the Taconic State Parkway, which traverses the eastern part of town.

Back in the 1920s and 1930s, it wasn’t unusual to find the Bambino hitting some balls on a now-overgrown field near Lake Oscawana. Babe Ruth was a regular visitor to Putnam Valley, where his agent, Walter “Christy” Walsh, owned a summer home. When a New York Yankees game wasn’t scheduled, Ruth would play an exhibition game or bat a few balls with the townspeople.

A poster in the collection of the Putnam Valley Historical Society announces “The King of Swat HIMSELF!” doing “some swatting” by the lake. A couple of faded photographs in the collection show Ruth mid-swing, surrounded by onlookers, giant boulders at his back.

“It was great publicity,” said Dan Ricci, the town historian. “And don’t forget, this was during Prohibition, and there were 23 bars in Putnam Valley at the time.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="69affac8-8d66-491a-af99-7472577fd1f0" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/realestate/putnam-valley-ny-quiet-rustic-and-old-timey.html">The New York Times</a>.

Figueroa, 34, now works as a doorman in Manhattan. His wife, Michelle Hernandez, 35, is a saleswoman at a jewelry store in the Bronx.

A quiet town with an 'old timey' feeling

Back in 1996, Michael Cioffi and his fellow kindergartners took an apple-picking field trip to Stuart’s Fruit Farm, in Somers, New York. Little did he know that 22 years later, he and his wife, Emily Cioffi, would purchase their first house together just a half-mile from the farm.

The Cioffis — he is 28, she 27 — work as electrical engineers at Indian Point Energy Center, in Buchanan. Shortly after their engagement, they started house hunting in nearby towns.

“We wanted a home in a good school district that had plenty of space to build a family,” Emily Cioffi said.

Their two-year search led them to Somers, a 33-square-mile town in Westchester County that borders Putnam County to the north. Last April, the Cioffis closed on a 2,331-square-foot, four-bedroom colonial, built in 1967 on 0.93 acres. In a highest-and-best competition with two other bidders, they paid $560,000, $10,000 over the asking price. While it was the house that lured them, the reputation of Somers’ schools clinched the decision.

Those schools were also the reason Amanda Casabona-Cohen and Lawrence Cohen moved to Somers in early 2015 with their two sons, now ages 12 and 14. Cohen, 48, is the creative director at a Manhattan law firm; Casabona-Cohen, 47, is a preschool teacher and the owner of Little People’s of Somers, a local preschool that she bought in June.

She grew up in Somers and returned in 2005, when her children were babies, after the couple sold their Upper East Side apartment and bought a house. But that house, in the northeast corner of the town, was zoned for schools in North Salem, about 10 miles east, and as her sons got older, Casabona-Cohen felt the pull of the larger Somers school district.

“We thought it had more to offer our boys, from sports programs to academic support to a wonderful, strong sense of community,” she said.

So they sold the first house and bought another a mile away, across the district line. They paid $760,000 for the 2,765-square-foot, four-bedroom, 2009 colonial, on 0.96 acres.

“We fit in here,” Casabona-Cohen said. “This is home.”

Roughly 22,000 people call Somers home. The town is predominantly residential, dotted with developments bearing names like The Preserve, Green Briar and Twin Knolls. It sits almost entirely within the Croton Watershed, whose reservoirs provide a portion of New York City’s drinking water.

“That limits development,” said Somers’ supervisor, Rick Morrissey, “and what development there is has to be more environmentally conscious.”

Still, development proceeds, with several housing subdivisions under construction. Until recently, PepsiCo and IBM occupied large properties in town (PepsiCo vacated in 2016, IBM in 2017). Currently, commercial tenants are filling PepsiCo’s former offices, and a proposal is under consideration for a STEAM boarding school in the erstwhile, I.M. Pei-designed IBM buildings.

Yet much of Somers retains an unspoiled character, with rolling hills, lakes, the sprawling Amawalk Reservoir and 1,000 acres of protected land.

“We are very proud of our open space,” Morrissey said.

Somers is more densely populated to the north, where modest homes cluster around small lakes to form the once summer-only, now year-round enclaves of Lake Shenorock, Lake Lincolndale, Lake Purdys and Deans Pond. Farther south, properties tend to be more expansive.

Morrissey said that Somers has 5,203 single-family homes and 90 multifamily homes. There are 2,600 condominiums, all in the 1,100-acre Heritage Hills complex; another 66 town homes are set to open this summer in the new Somers Crossing.

As for rentals, there are 37 buildings with 387 apartments, including 235 affordable units, most designated for seniors.

“We are meeting the housing needs of the whole spectrum,” Morrissey said.

Pricewise, there is also a spectrum. “We have homes from $200,000 up to $2 million,” said Joan Mancini, an associate broker and co-owner of Mancini Realty.

That range attracts diverse buyers, among them “young families and first-time homebuyers, empty-nesters wanting to downsize and people looking for bigger homes and larger lots,” Mancini said.

Linda Crispinelli, an associate broker with Houlihan Lawrence, said that Somers’ high-end market has softened during the past year, due in part to rising interest rates and uncertainty about new property-tax laws: “Homes listed at $800,000 and above are experiencing fewer showings and longer days on the market.”

In contrast, she said, “Inventory is moving in the $500,000 to $600,000 range, with some sellers seeing multiple offers.”

Data from the Hudson Gateway Multiple Listing Service showed that on Dec. 21, there were 76 single-family homes on the market. They ranged from a one-bedroom, 1,266-square-foot ranch, built in 1965 on 4.99 acres, for $274,900, to a five-bedroom, 5,286-square-foot colonial, built in 2000 on 1.7 acres, for $1,545,000. There were 37 condominiums for sale, ranging from a one-bedroom for $255,000 to a three-bedroom for $939,000, and there were 14 rentals, priced from $1,950 to $3,250 a month.

The median sales price for single-family homes during the 12-month period ending Dec. 21 was $527,000, down from $552,500 the previous 12 months. For condominiums, the median sales price was $410,000, unchanged from the previous 12 months. The median rental was $2,650, also unchanged from the previous year.

Morrissey described Somers as a close-knit community “with a small-town feel.” Residents enjoy summertime block parties, well-attended high school football games, Veterans and Memorial Day parades and the annual Celebrate Somers festival. They gather at the 82-acre Reis Park, one of six town parks and site of ballfields, tennis courts, nature trails and the Somers Library.

Other recreational options are Alfred B. DelBello Muscoot Farm, a working restoration of a farm dating to the late 19th century; Lasdon Park and Arboretum; and the 654-acre Angle Fly Preserve, with a 10-mile hiking trail network. Ice fishing is permitted on the reservoir, as are row-boating and fishing in warmer weather. And there’s Michael Cioffi’s kindergarten haunt, Stuart’s Fruit Farm, family-owned since 1828.

Somers, which lacks a central downtown area, concentrates its commerce in two main shopping hubs: Towne Centre at Somers, where a new DeCicco &amp; Sons supermarket is scheduled to open this winter, and Somers Commons, with a Stop and Shop, HomeGoods and other chains. Dining choices include Le Fontane Ristorante, Burger Barn and, seasonally, King Kone, a soft-serve landmark.

Almost all of Somers is served by the Somers Central School District, with some families in the northwestern corner zoned for the Lakeland Central School District, and a few in the northeastern corner zoned for the North Salem Central School District. The 2,953 students in the Somers school district, all Somers residents, attend Primrose Elementary for kindergarten through second grade, Somers Intermediate for grades three through five, Somers Middle for grades six through eight, and Somers High School.

Amanda Bergen, a district spokeswoman, said that of the fourth-graders who took the 2018 state assessments, 53 percent were proficient in English and 66 percent were proficient in math; statewide equivalents were 41 percent and 43 percent.

The high school, a 2018 National Blue Ribbon School, offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program. (In 2020, the middle school is slated to introduce the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program.) Mean SAT scores for the 2018 graduating class were 613 in English and 610 in math; statewide equivalents were 563 and 574.

Commuters to nearby cities like White Plains, New York, and Danbury, Connecticut, have easy access to Interstate 684. Commuters to Manhattan, about 45 miles southwest, can drive a few miles east to catch Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem line at Katonah, Goldens Bridge, Purdys or Croton Falls. Rush-hour trains to and from Grand Central Terminal take between 58 and 84 minutes. Monthly fare from Goldens Bridge and Katonah is $369; from Croton Falls and Purdys it is $422.

Early in the 1800s, Hachaliah Bailey, a Somers farmer and drover, purchased an elephant, purportedly to help in his fields. But he quickly realized he had acquired a more lucrative attraction: a fantastical creature people would pay money to see. He called her Old Bet.

Old Bet’s arrival marked the start of the traveling menagerie business, as Bailey and his neighbors toured the region with monkeys, giraffes and other exotic animals. Somers became the epicenter of an emerging national industry, a precursor to circus animal acts. (James Anthony Bailey, who was adopted into the family years later, would launch the Barnum &amp; Bailey Circus, with P.T. Barnum, in 1881.)

In 1816, Old Bet was killed by a disgruntled farmer in Maine. Nine years later, Bailey built the Elephant Hotel in her honor. There, in 1835, a group of menagerie owners formed the Zoological Institute to consolidate their interests. Today, the brick building houses Somers’ town hall; it was named a National Historic Landmark in 2005. Outside, a sculpture of Old Bet perches atop an obelisk, a replica of the monument Bailey erected for her.

This article originally appeared in <a id="73db3b01-c379-4075-a27f-5e3b35d435ad" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/realestate/somers-ny-a-close-knit-town-with-plenty-of-shopping-and-great-parks.html">The New York Times</a>.

Somers, N.Y.: A close-knit town with plenty of shopping and great parks