THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, JULY 26, 2020 MBRE 5With a baby starting to crawl and their Up-
per East Side rental feeling cramped,
Yelizaveta and Dan Friedman set their
sights on Mr. Friedman’s native Bergen
County, N.J. After looking at homes in
Ridgewood and Glen Rock, they settled on a
more northerly suburb, Hillsdale.
“The town checked a lot of boxes for us,”
said Mr. Friedman, 39, an architect in Man-
hattan. (Ms. Friedman, 38, works in infor-
mation technology for an arts organiza-
tion.) “Good schools, more property for
your money, and lots of parks and green
space.”
In 2017, the Friedmans paid $630,000 for a
four-bedroom house on a third of an acre in
what real estate agents call the Tandy and
Allen section. Tandy and Allen were mid-
century developers who created a subdivi-
sion of 200 ranch-style houses with such
distinctive touches as a living space above
the garage and dual-sided fireplaces be-
tween the dining and living rooms. The
Friedmans’ ranch came with a stream bor-
dering the backyard, a magnet for wildlife.
Now the parents of two, the couple have
settled in and Mr. Friedman recently joined
the municipal planning board. Their experi-
ence during the pandemic has validated
their decision to move to Hillsdale.
Many New Jersey residents know the
borough of 10,500 for Demarest Farms,
which has apple and pumpkin picking in the
autumn and, during this summer of quaran-
tine, drive-in movies in its parking lot. An-
other Hillsdale attraction is Dolores San-
tucci, 93, who sells hot dogs and sausages
from a sidewalk pushcart in front of her
son’s time-warp Karl Ehmer pork store, an
anchor of the compact downtown.
Nichol DeGruccio, a sales associate with
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in
Hillsdale, said the borough, which has rail
and bus service, was seeing a surge of inter-
est from pandemic-weary New Yorkers.
And she calls Hillsdale the “Goldilocks”
of Bergen County’s Pascack Valley: “not too
big, not too small, not too expensive, not too
cheap, not too busy, not too boring.”
That appealed to Seth D. Griep, a 42-year-
old lawyer, and his husband, Thomas Vetter,
30, who works for a fence company. Previ-
ously high-rise dwellers in the county seat,
Hackensack, where Mr. Griep’s job is based,
the couple bought a four-bedroom ex-
panded Cape Cod on a quarter-acre in 2018,
paying $415,000. Mr. Griep calls it “the
Hillsdale lodge” because of the neighbor-
hood’s off-the-beaten-track ambience and
quiet streets, ideal for jogging and biking.
“But one of the reasons we moved here,”
he said, was the proximity to the “town cen-
ter of Westwood and their fantastic selec-
tion of restaurants.”
The Appeal of Not Being Too Anything
By JAY LEVINDowntown Hillsdale’s architecture, including the building that houses the Cornerstone restaurant, dates to the early 20th century.LAURA MOSS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESTHE NEW YORK TIMESLIVING IN HILLSDALE, N.J.What You’ll FindTwenty-five miles from Times Square and
convenient to the Garden State Parkway,
which cuts through its western end, Hills-
dale is primarily a community of single-
family homes on spacious lots. Colonials,
ranches and split-levels are in abundance,
and there is a smattering of condos. Neigh-
borhoods are verdant and most lack side-
walks, lending a countrified air.
Broadway and Hillsdale Avenue inter-
sect at the borough center, which features
the 1869 train station, a manicured veter-
ans’ memorial and a mom-and-pop retail
cluster of the basic variety: deli, bagels,
hardware, salons and such.
“From what I gather talking to real es-
tate agents, people come to Hillsdale be-
cause they like the schools and the small-
town feel,” said John Ruocco, the mayor.
But that vibe, he added, “is a double-edged
sword, because our downtown is quaint,
but old. Some millennials might think, ‘Gee,
can’t you change the facades of the build-
ings?’ ”What You’ll PayFrom July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, the
median sale price of a single-family house
in Hillsdale was $514,500, based on 96
transactions, according to the New Jersey
Multiple Listing Service. During the same
period a year earlier, 107 single-family
houses sold at a median price of $477,000.
On July 15, the listing service’s website
showed 30 single-family houses available,
priced from $375,000 to $929,000. At thelow end, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom,
1940s Cape Cod on Hopkins Street was
listed for $464,000, with annual property
taxes of $10,725. At the high end, sitting on
a half-acre on Royal Park Terrace, was an
updated four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-
bathroom split-level listed for $899,000,
with taxes of $17,295.The VibeAnnual events like a fall festival, Halloween
parade and apple gathering at the Dema-
rest Farms orchard make Hillsdale decid-
edly family-friendly. Upstairs at the train
station, hobbyists exhibit model railroads.
Summertime finds many children at the
borough’s swim club (although this year
the complex remains closed).
The borough’s dining scene, not as large
as Westwood’s or Ridgewood’s, skews
Italian: Osso Buco, Domani and Della
Cucina all have alfresco seating. There is
also Matsu, a Japanese bistro; Rockin’
Roots, a plant-based cafe and juice bar; and
the Cornerstone, a casual spot with a bar
menu.The SchoolsThe Hillsdale public school district has two
elementary schools and a middle school for
grades five through eight. The district’s
racial and ethnic composition is approxi-
mately three-quarters white, 14 percent
Hispanic, 8 percent Asian and 1 percent
Black.
Students advance to Pascack Valley High
School on Piermont Avenue, which enrollsabout 1,200 and also serves neighboring
River Vale. Average SAT scores in 2018-19
were 570 in reading and writing and 578 in
math, compared with 539 and 541 state-
wide. The class of 2019 had a near-perfect
graduation rate, and 90.4 percent enrolled
in postsecondary education.The CommuteThe train ride to Penn Station in Manhattan
takes 60 to 70 minutes on New Jersey
Transit’s Pascack Valley Line, including the
transfer at Secaucus; the fare is $9.75 one
way or $298 monthly. An annual permit for
the commuter parking lot costs $170.
The private Rockland Coaches bus com-
pany has two Hillsdale routes. Getting to
the Port Authority terminal takes about an
hour; fares are $8.85 or $9.45 one way
($145.95 or $156.65 for 20 trips). Some
Hillsdale commuters take New Jersey
Transit’s No. 165T bus from Westwood; the
fare is $7 one way, $199 monthly.The HistoryThe sandstone farmhouse built in 1767 by
Garret Durie, a blacksmith — still standing,
on Ell Road — was plundered by Continen-
tal and British troops during the Revolu-
tionary War.
In the mid-1800s, the borough’s citizenry
appropriated the pastoral-sounding moni-
ker Hillsdale from the name of the local
schoolhouse. Originally part of Washington
Township, Hillsdale became a township in
1898 and was reincorporated as a borough
in 1923.59 Dwight Avenue
A four-bedroom, three-and-a-
half-bathroom house, built in
1956 on 0.23 of an acre,
listed for $744,000. 201-
930-8820352 Piermont Avenue
A five-bedroom, three-bath-
room house, built in 1960 on
0.22 of an acre, listed for
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