Manhasset, N.Y.: Hometown Aura and a Short Commute Lure Residents

Couples and families with young children from Manhattan and Queens have been flocking to Manhasset since the start of the pandemic, competing for million-dollar-plus homes in this casually elegant hamlet on the wealthy North Shore of Long Island, in western Nassau County. Among the recent buyers were some who grew up in the affable, well-to-do enclave and returned to raise their own families.

In June, shortly before they had twins, Maggie and Andrew Keister moved from an apartment in Hoboken, N.J., to the updated three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath 1928 Tudor they bought for $1,456,600 in Manhasset, Ms. Keister’s hometown.

With its square backyard, detached garage and room for a swing set on a 0.15-acre lot, the property “has a lot of charm,” said Ms. Keister, 32, a schoolteacher. (Mr. Keister, 33, a beer salesman, is from southern New Jersey.) Moreover, it takes five minutes to walk to town and the train, passing two parks along the way.

Aside from more space, she said, the couple wanted family nearby to help with the babies. Now she sees her sister, who lives less than a mile away, every day. Her brother is in neighboring Port Washington.

“My next-door neighbor is someone I went to high school with and her parents still live there,” said Ms. Keister. “I loved growing up here in Manhasset. Some of my closest friends — I went kindergarten with them — also moved back.”

When Manhattanites Sarah Shaw, 38, and Connor Nix, 36, started searching for a house last year, it was the easy commute, good schools and that hometown aura that convinced them to choose Manhasset over Summit, N.J., Bronxville, N.Y., and Rye, N.Y.

In June, the couple, who married on Oct. 22, topped more than seven other bids, paying $1,530,431 — about $30,000 over the asking price — for a three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom brick colonial on a quarter-acre lot.

“We were looking for a neighborhood and a community that felt right for us,” said Ms. Shaw, 38, general manager of Bloomingdales’s Manhattan flagship. “We love the trees and the homes. It reminds me of the neighborhood I grew up in outside Cincinnati.”

What once was “a very homogeneous community” has become “much more diverse,” said Ann Hance, an associate broker with Daniel Gale Sotheby’s, who moved to Manhasset in 1995. Census data for 2020 reported the hamlet to be 61.5 percent non-Hispanic white, 15.4 percent Asian, 9 percent Black, 10.9 percent Hispanic and 2.8 percent multiracial.

“This is the type of town that embraces newcomers,” Ms. Hance added, though she acknowledged that last year’s median home price of $1.8 million was “economically limiting.”

Many people who come are “searching for that community feeling,” she said. “I can’t imagine a place that is better to raise a family than Manhasset.”

What You’ll Find

East of the Great Neck peninsula, across Manhasset Bay on Long Island’s moneyed North Shore, Manhasset, with about 18,000 residents, covers about seven square miles and is the Town of North Hempstead’s seat. Port Washington is to the north, Roslyn to the east, and Herricks to the south.

Defined by its school district, the 11030 Manhasset ZIP code includes the incorporated villages of Munsey Park, Plandome, Plandome Heights, parts of Plandome Manor, Flower Hill and North Hills, as well as unincorporated areas.

Distinct, impeccably maintained colonials, Dutch colonials and Tudors, many dating to the 1930s or earlier, grace manicured lots of 0.10 to half an acre along winding, rolling roads under canopies of tall trees.

Plandome Road runs downhill from the tombstones at the 1816 Historic Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery, slicing north-south through Manhasset’s folksy downtown, past Schout Bay Tavern, Buttercooky Bakery, the new Herb & Olive Greek market/restaurant and the North Hempstead Town Hall. Summer concerts are held in the gazebo across the street in Mary Jane Davies Green, and at the downtown core is the Manhasset station of the Long Island Rail Road.

Nearby is Louie’s, a 75-seat diner that shifted its specials in recent years from meatloaf to halibut parmigiana. Next door, Afshin Haghani, an owner of Gallery Couture, a 30-year-old clothing boutique, dances to African music between the racks of $500 to $800 ladies’ sweaters. Shoppers browse at Raindew, a variety store for, well, everything. An Art Deco multiplex movie theater is across the street. After school, teens grab slices at Villa Milano, Gino’s or Umberto’s, the trio of local pizzerias.

Though F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have based the East Egg of “The Great Gatsby” on affluent North Shore towns, Manhasset’s ambience can better evoke a scene from “Cheers.”

“You know the people at the deli, they know what sandwiches you want,” said Dan Denihan, 74, whose five grown children gravitated home from Manhattan to raise their own families, giving him and his wife, Kathleen, 17 grandchildren close by. “The people at the bar know what drink you want.”

Chain stores like DSW and Michael’s are clustered on Northern Boulevard, as Route 25A, the main east-west thoroughfare, is known in these parts. Manhasset’s “Miracle Mile” ambles east from an empty Lord & Taylor (slated to become a Saks Works, a suburban social center with workstations), past fine dining at La Coquille and Stresa, a Barnes & Noble and an Apple Store. At the top of a hill, Americana Manhasset, Long Island’s lushly landscaped version of Rodeo Drive, counts Versace, Gucci and Jimmy Choo among its 60 luxury shops and eateries.

South of downtown, North Shore University Hospital, part of the Northwell Health network, is expanding along Community Drive. Gated communities dot Shelter Rock Road.

What You’ll Pay

A lack of inventory “is creating a little bit of a frenzy when things do come on the market,” said Traci Conway Clinton, an agent with Compass. A five-bedroom 1925 colonial on 1.03 acres in the Plandome village section sold for $4.05 million in October, $500,000 over the asking price. “It was a multiple-bid situation,” Ms. Clinton said. “It was not updated.”

On Nov. 2, the One Key Multiple Listing Service showed 60 properties for sale in Manhasset, ranging from $350,000 for a one-bedroom, one-bath co-op unit to $11.8 million for a six-bedroom, six-and-a-half bath waterfront mansion built in 1910 on 0.89 acres, with an indoor pool and a large dock.

A 1937 three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath colonial on a 0.17-acre lot, whose price recently dropped $50,000 to $1.275 million, came with annual property taxes of $16,302, according to realtor.com.

This year through October, 192 properties sold in Manhasset, with an average price of $1,855,384 and an average time of 76 days on the market, Ms. Hance said. By contrast, during the first 10 months of 2020, 152 properties sold in the hamlet, for an average of $1,833,509 after an average 93 days on the market.

The Vibe

Country clubs, yacht clubs and parks draw golfers, sailors, boaters and tennis players. Natural history buffs can visit the 35-acre Long Island Science Museum at the Leeds Pond Preserve. Manhasset Valley Park is the site of lacrosse, soccer, softball and Little League games.

For Aileen Barry, mother of four boys, marathoner and a 2020 Olympic Trials qualifying athlete, Manhasset’s hilly streets are ideal for running, even with a stroller. The friendly, civic-minded village where she and her husband, Jay, a Manhasset native, moved in 2014 for the commute, has other merits.

“It’s very easy to become involved; there is so much going on in the community,” said Ms. Barry, who is co-chair of the annual 700-runner Manhasset Women’s Coalition Against Breast Cancer 5K and started a mom’s running club. “It is a close-knit town.”

The community that pulled together after it lost nearly 50 souls on Sept. 11, 2001, gathered again in August after three Manhasset residents in their 20s were killed in a car accident in Quogue, a village on the East End of Long Island. The victims were honored at a Chamber of Commerce “Al Fresco” soiree, a biweekly outdoor dining, shopping and entertainment event that ended for the season in October. Blue and orange ribbons, the high school colors, remain wrapped in memoriam around the trunks of hundreds of trees.

At the Americana Manhasset, community spirit revs up on Nov. 21 with a “pre-shop,” or additional shopping day, for their annual Champions for Charity event, which supports about 140 nonprofits chosen by shoppers. The event has raised more than $15 million since it began 25 years ago.

The Schools

The Manhasset Union Free School District has about 3,300 students and comprises two elementary schools, Munsey Park and Shelter Rock, for kindergarten through sixth grade, and the Manhasset Secondary School campus, with a middle school and high school.

At Manhasset High School, students from the class of 2021 taking the SAT test averaged 641 in reading and writing and 681 in math, compared with state averages of 526 and 531. Ninety-seven percent of graduates go on to college; 93 percent attend four-year schools.

St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church has about 700 students in its elementary and high schools at its campus on Northern Boulevard.

The Commute

Manhasset is on the Port Washington line of the Long Island Rail Road. The 28-minute express train makes one stop in Great Neck before heading straight to Penn Station.

The 23-mile drive from Manhasset to Midtown Manhattan via the Grand Central Parkway or the Long Island Expressway typically takes 30 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic.

The History

During the 17th century, the area was known as Little Cow Neck thanks to its first-rate grazing land. In 1840, the Native American name Manhasset, roughly meaning “island neighborhood,” was adopted. In 1898, when the Long Island Rail Road began providing easy access to the city, moneyed New Yorkers purchased country homes in the hamlet.

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