3 days ago
The NYC neighborhood where house prices are crash-proof
Nestled in the middle of New York City is a neighborhood filled with Tudor-style homes, lush gardens, and a private tennis club that was the home of the first US Open. Forest Hills in the borough of Queens feels like a tranquil suburb, yet has a view of the Manhattan skyline and is only nine miles outside of Midtown.
The neighborhood, where homes with mullioned windows and gabled roofs easily fetch $2 to $4 million, covers about 2.5 square miles, and is home to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, home of two World's Fairs. At the heart of the area is Forest Hills Gardens, a private development built in the early 20th century and modeled directly on English garden cities. It's filled with pocket parks and old-fashioned lampposts.
Forest Hills Gardens only has 800 houses, 11 apartment buildings, and a small number of churches, restaurants and storefronts. Nearly 121,000 people call Forest Hills home, including about 5,000 people who live in Forest Hills Gardens, according to a Data USA census report.
'They did a lot of things right in Forest Hills,' local realtor Bruce Eaton of the Corcoran Group told the Daily Mail about the high-demand area. 'They have green spaces, beautiful architecture, there's parks, and it's conveniently located close to Manhattan. Prices never drop because more people want to live here than there is inventory available.'
Although the Forest Hills luxury market has slowed from its pandemic pace, prices remain high because there are so few homes for sale. The average sale price for a single-family home is currently $1.4 million, Eaton said. Across the borough of Queens as a whole, the average sale price for a home is $760,000, according to Redfin.
Forest Hills is home to the 133-year-old West Side Tennis Club, a neighborhood institution that includes Forest Hills Stadium, an enormous outdoor swimming pool and a clubhouse for dining. The US Open was held there until it moved to Flushing Meadows in 1978.
The 13,000-seat Forest Hills Stadium, a hotspot for shows, has had Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and the Beatles play there. This summer, Mumford & Sons, The Black Keys, and Doechii will all play there. Residents in the neighborhood can often be spotted enjoying concerts for free on their own front lawns.
There's a summer farmer's market at Forest Hills Greenmarket and boutique shops and restaurants on on Austin Street. Residents might also enjoy an old-fashioned egg cream at Eddie's Sweet Shop, which has a century-old soda fountain. The area is so unique, multiple films and TV shows have been filmed there, including The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and The Royal Tenenbaums.
Director Wes Anderson used the tennis club for scenes, including the Windswept Fields meltdown of Richie Tenenbaum, played by Luke Wilson, during a match that destroyed his tennis career. In the origin story of Spider-Man, his alter-ego Peter Parker is famously from Forest Hills, where he lives with his Aunt May and Uncle Ben. Folk duo Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel of Simon & Garfunkel grew up in Forest Hills, three blocks away from each other and landed their first record deal while attending high school in the area.
The public schools in Forest Hills are top-notch and public transportation is easily accessible with the subway, Long Island Railroad and multiple buses within walking distance. Forest Hills Gardens was first established in 1909 when Margaret Sage, founder of the non-profit Russell Sage Foundation, bought 142 acres of Forest Hills from a local development company. She then commissioned architects Grosvenor Atterbury and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., the son of the famed Central Park designer, to plan and design the neighborhood, which they modeled directly on English garden cities of the early 20th century.
The neighborhood is filled with antique wrought-iron street lamps and vintage blue street signs. 'There's basically almost no ground that hasn't been developed, so if you want to build here you have to buy something then tear it down and rebuild, and there's a limited supply,' Eaton told the Daily Mail. 'There's always more people wanting to live in Forest hills. People think they discover it every four or five years.'
