I spent a morning in the richest town on the East Coast, a picturesque village 35 minutes north of NYC where the average household income is almost $420,000. Here's what it looks like

Katie Warren

Apr 10, 2019, 18:30 IST

I spent a morning in the richest town on the East Coast, a picturesque village 35 minutes north of NYC where the average household income is almost $420,000. Here's what it looks like

Katie Warren/Business Insider

Scarsdale's Murray Hill neighborhood is filled with multimillion-dollar estate-like homes.

Scarsdale, New York is the richest town on the East Coast and the second-richest in the US, according to Bloomberg.
The average household income is $417,335.
I spent a recent morning in Scarsdale, which is only about 35 minutes by train from New York City and is full of charming boutiques and multimillion-dollar estate-like homes.
With its quiet village atmosphere, top-rated schools, immaculate homes, and proximity to NYC, Scarsdale seems like the best of both worlds - if you can afford to live there.
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Scarsdale, a town of about 18,000 people 35 minutes north of New York City, is the richest town on the East Coast and the second-richest in the US, according to Bloomberg's 2019 Richest Places report.

It's beat only by Atherton, California, a Silicon Valley town that tech billionaires including Google's Eric Schmidt and Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg have called home.

Scarsdale's average household income jumped $30,000 from the year prior to $417,335, according to Bloomberg.

The affluent community, which is both a town and a village, is located in New York's Westchester County, an area that consistently sees various towns ranked among the country's most affluent.

Anne Moretti, a real estate broker at Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International Realty, told me Scarsdale lures many buyers from Manhattan.

"Scarsdale's consistently high-ranking school district plus the easy 35-minute commute to Grand Central makes it a great place to live," she said.

In 2018, the average home price in Scarsdale was $1.8 million, Moretti said. And so far in 2019, the housing market has been "very active," she says, despite high inventory levels of homes priced above $3 million.

"There have been bidding wars on homes in the $1 million to $1.5 million range," Moretti said.

Scarsdale is known for its top-rated public schools, with Scarsdale High School rated among the 100 best in the country in 2018.

Residents of Scarsdale tend to be "leaders in their respective fields of medicine, journalism, finance, literature, law, and technology," Moretti said.

I spent a few hours walking around Scarsdale and getting a peek at some of its stately homes. Here's what it looks like.

From my apartment in Brooklyn, I headed to Grand Central Station to catch the Metro North up to Scarsdale.

I stepped out of the train station in Scarsdale to a bright and sunny spring morning.

The charming little train station put me right in the center of town. Scarsdale, which is officially both a town and a village, has a population of about 18,000. It was recently ranked the richest town on the East Coast — and the second richest in the US — by Bloomberg.

Scarsdale is known for its Tudor-style homes and storefronts, many of which were built in the 1920s.

One of the most prominent examples of Tudor-style architecture is the historical Harwood Building, finished in 1928.

As I walked through Scarsdale's charming, compact town center, I passed hair and nail salons, art galleries, bakeries, gift shops, and clothing boutiques. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of chain stores.

A place called Nordic Edge was offering cryotherapy, a now-trendy wellness treatment that involves exposing your body to super-cold temperatures to soothe sore muscles and boost metabolism.

The streets were calm and quiet on a weekday morning, with not many people walking around.

Anne Moretti, a real estate broker at Julia B. Fee Sotheby's International Realty, told me Scarsdale draws many home buyers from Manhattan.

The busiest place in the village on the morning of my visit seemed to be the Parkway Cafe.

Next door is Martine's, a bakery selling sandwiches, salads, coffee and tea, and French-style pastries.

I wandered over to Chase Park, a small but pristinely landscaped green space in the center of town, right across the street from the post office.

Scarsdale has a reputation for having some of the best public schools in Westchester County, which is what draws many families to the area, according to Moretti.

I went to get a look at Scarsdale High School, which has been ranked among the top 100 high schools in the country.

My next stop was Scarsdale's Murray Hill neighborhood, known for its estate-like homes set on relatively large swaths of land.

While the average home price in Scarsdale was $1.8 million in 2018, prices in Murray Hill are significantly higher, at an average of $3.44 million, according to Moretti.

Some of the grandest-looking homes were barely visible, set back at the end of long driveways and hidden away behind trees and hedges.

Others, such as this newer-construction home, were in plain view thanks to the trees that had yet to sprout their leaves.

This brick Georgian Colonial house in Murray Hill sold last year for nearly $6 million, according to Zillow.

I took a short Uber ride to get a look at The Heathcote, a new building that offers 14 ultra-luxurious boutique residential units for rent starting at $9,500 per month.

The residence is across the street from the Golden Horseshoe Shopping Center and Balducci's Food Lover's Market, a high-end specialty market that seemed to be bustling with shoppers.

After my tour of Scarsdale, it was clear why affluent families are drawn to its charming downtown area, top-rated schools, and immaculate, multimillion-dollar homes with large yards.

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