Pleasantville, NY: A walkable village that ticks ‘all the boxes’

USA

Before discovering Pleasantville, NY several years ago, Erin Williams lived with her husband and elementary school-aged daughter in a succession of Westchester communities. They bought a house in Ossining, NY, but found the commute to Manhattan too time consuming. And getting around the city couldn’t be easier. After selling their house and renting in Manhattan for a while, they moved into a rental in Tarrytown, NY, while looking for their next stop.

It was then that they came across Pleasantville, a village in the Westchester town of Mount Pleasant. There, the family found an 1880s three-bedroom Colonial home for $600,000, in a close-knit neighborhood with residents of diverse cultures, near the village center.

“It ticked all the boxes,” says Ms. Williams, 40, a graphic novelist, who loves the area’s walkability, school system and community. “We love our neighbours. One snows our driveway uninvited and another, a Korean lady, brings us cucumbers from her garden.”

Another draw was the art scene. At the center of the village is the Jacob Burns Film Center, which has been drawing moviegoers from Westchester and beyond for over 20 years. Three of the five screening rooms have recently been renovated, and there are plans to install a wine bar, says Denise Treco, the center’s director of marketing and communications.

The movie center “put Pleasantville on the map,” said Hillary Landau, a real estate agent at Compass, and attracted a “very eclectic” mix of residents, including “creative types, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers.”

Her clients from New York City and elsewhere in Westchester, she added, “want to walk downtown, to the train, and to the farmer’s market.”

That should be even easier in the fall, when a state-sponsored project to widen downtown sidewalks and add more pedestrian-friendly streets is expected to be completed, said Eric Morrissey, the village administrator. And a 79-unit rental building currently under construction downtown will provide more housing—both market-standard and affordable apartments—within a short walk from the train station. (Other planned development includes a handful of single-family homes on a 3-acre lot outside the village center once owned by the Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson.)

Loretta Chiavetta, an agent at Coldwell Banker, wanted for her family the same small-town experience she had as a child in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, when she and her husband left a co-op in Manhattan 30 years ago. . Because prices in Hastings were too high, she said, they visited Pleasantville at the suggestion of a relative. There, Mrs. Chiavetta saw “children in the street and bicycles on the lawn,” and was hooked.

Her family settled in an 1890s three-bedroom Colonial house on Washington Avenue, downtown, within walking distance of restaurants, shops, and the Metro-North station. Ms. Chiavetta still lives there with her husband and school-age daughter, and now has many clients looking for the same experience.

“So many come from Brooklyn,” she said. “And I can see why – the charm of the houses, the walkability of the village and the proximity to town.”

What you will find

Pleasantville occupies less than two square miles in the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, about 30 miles north of Manhattan. According to 2021 census figures, the village has a population of about 7,400, of whom about 84 percent identify as White, 14 percent as Hispanic, 4 percent as Black, 4 percent as Asian, and 3 percent as multiracial. The median household income was $165,987.

The village is best known for its downtown Colonial-style homes, but its inventory also includes ranches, split-level homes, and Cape Cod-style homes on lots of one-third of an acre or less. While larger homes on larger lots can be found farther from the village center, “you don’t come to Pleasantville to get an acre and a pool,” Ms. Landau said.

Attached townhouses are available at Club Court, a development adjacent to a nine-hole golf course operated by the Pleasantville Country Club, and at the Enclave at Pleasantville, a high-end Toll Brothers development. Foxwood offers apartments in a multi-building complex, and there are garden-style apartments in Greenwood and Pleasantville Gardens. As for co-ops, the options are Commons, Pleasant Manor, and Ledgerock Gardens. The apartment rentals include lofts along Washington Avenue and one- and two-bedroom units at the Atwood, on Vanderbilt Avenue.

What you pay

With inventory low, demand high and mortgage rates rising, this is a “very competitive time for buyers,” said Ms. Chiavetta, who co-hosts “The Real Estate Connection,” a local cable show about real estate.

According to a Coldwell Banker analysis of data from the OneKey Multiple Listing Service, the median sale price of a single-family home fell from $784,000 in April to $652,500 in April. This was partly due to fewer sales at the top end – and fewer sales overall – than in the previous year, Ms Chiavetta said.

In April, there were 16 single-family homes on the market in the Pleasantville postal zone, including a three-bedroom, one-bathroom elevated farmhouse listed for $599,000, and a five-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bath home. listed for $3,999 million. Also listed were two three-bedroom mansions (for $1.99 million and $1,050 million) and several condominiums ranging from $240,000 to $429,900.

Monthly apartment rentals can cost $4,800 for a Washington Avenue loft or just under $3,000 for a bedroom at the Atwood, on Vanderbilt Avenue.

The atmosphere

On nice days, middle school and high school students stroll from their nearby campus to Frank & Joe’s Deli and the Black Cow Coffee Company on Wheeler Avenue, in the village center. Diners fill the outdoor tables at Pubstreet and Fatt Root, an Asian food store recently featured in Westchester Magazine, while brown-baggers lunch on benches along Memorial Plaza. Cheese aficionados praise Second Mouse Cheese on Manville Road. For casual dining, there is the Pleasantville Diner, on Memorial Plaza.

On Saturday mornings, the Pleasantville Farmers Market – considered by some to be the best in Westchester – draws crowds to Memorial Plaza. Popular annual events include the Pleasantville Music Festival, held this year on July 8 at Parkway Field, and Pleasantville Day, a May celebration of the village’s food, goods, and services at Memorial Plaza.

Favorite places for young families are the playing fields at Roselle Park and Soldiers & Sailors Park, as well as the swimming pool at Nannahagan Park. Mountain bikers enjoy five miles of trails in Graham Hills Park, off Route 117. Indoor activities are held at the Mount Pleasant Public Library, on Bedford Road, and the Recreation Center, on Marble Avenue. Elderly residents gather at the Senior Center on Clinton Street. For ping pong fans, there is the Westchester Table Tennis Center on Tompkins Avenue.

The schools

The Pleasantville Union Free School District has an enrollment of approximately 1,635 at three schools. Bedford Road School serves students from Kindergarten through fourth grade; Pleasantville Middle School and Pleasantville High School share a campus on Romer Avenue, serving fifth through twelfth grade students. Some high school students come from nearby Pocantico Hills, which has no high school.

“The school is the center of attention here,” says Tina DeSa, the Superintendent of Schools. “We care about the kids and that’s why everyone wants to live in Pleasantville.”

According to New York State Education Department data from 2021-22, Pleasantville High School had a 97 percent graduation rate and its student body was 73 percent White, 15 percent Hispanic, 6 percent Asian, 2 percent Black, and 4 percent multiracial. The mean SAT scores for the class of 2022 reported by the district were 618 for evidence-based reading and writing and 622 for math, compared to statewide averages of 534 and 533. The high school was declared a high school in 2021 National Blue Ribbon School.

A 200-acre branch of Pace University is also located in Pleasantville.

The commute

The trip to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on the Metro-North Railroad’s Harlem Line takes just under an hour. A pre-purchased one-way ticket costs $14.75; a monthly pass is $322.

Annual parking passes are only available to village residents and business owners for $600. For non-residents, there are 12-hour and hourly parking spaces.

The history

In the 18th century, Pleasantville was an agricultural area known as the Philipseburgh Manor. Early residents included members of the Sint Sincks and Rechgawawanks Native American tribes, as well as Dutch settlers and Quakers.

In the mid-19th century, the village was known as Clark’s Corners. During the Civil War, it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Past residents include the writers Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett, and the actor Sidney Poitier. Reader’s Digest magazine was co-founded by a former resident, DeWitt Wallace, and was headquartered in the village before moving to neighboring Chappaqua and later Manhattan. The Usonia Historic District, a master-planned community designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1940s, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.