Somers, N.Y.

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new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/realestate/09livi.html

By ELSA BRENNER
Published: November 7, 2008
LAURA KEY, who moved to this sprawling town on the northern edge of Westchester County 18 months ago, isn’t the least bit fazed by having to drive six miles for a quart of milk and a loaf of bread. In fact, it seems a small price to pay for the tranquillity that Somers has in abundance.
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“I don’t mind at all not having a Wal-Mart store close by,” said Mrs. Key, who came from densely populated Williamsburg, Va., with her two sons and her husband, Sanford, a priest at the local St. Luke’s Episcopal Church.
Outi and Richard Crannell, on the other hand, moved to Somers 15 years ago from North Salem, which they found too remote and undeveloped. Their son and daughter grew up here, and both now attend the local high school. For Mrs. Crannell, a watercolorist who also teaches Finnish part time in Manhattan, Somers is “all about sharing a very strong sense of community.”
She is active in a community group that cooks for families undergoing difficult times. The group became very involved in helping families affected by the terrorist attacks of 2001.
“The word goes out when someone is in need, and people here pitch right in,” Mrs. Crannell said. “I have come to appreciate that quality about the townspeople very much,” she said.
But people venturing to Somers from more heavily populated areas can express misgivings about isolation, real estate agents say. Sometimes Somers can be a hard sell.
“When they don’t see shopping centers, sidewalks or streetlights,” said Christina Kevelin, a broker for Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, “some buyers just can’t handle it, and they get right back in the car. Not everyone can take all this open space.”
To which Mary Beth Murphy, the town supervisor, responds, maybe outsiders just aren’t able to appreciate the area’s beauty. For the most part, Ms. Murphy, who is an advocate of preserving open space in the 33-acre town, says she has been preaching to the choir during her 11 years in office. And the choir has grown: the population, 20,045 today, was 18,281 in 2000.
All but a quarter square mile of Somers lies within the New York City watershed area, so despite opposition from some developers and their lawyers, the town has succeeded in the steps it has taken to keep development at bay.
A decade ago, it shifted to two- and three-acre zoning for many areas and restricted tree-cutting. In 2005 it acquired the 654-acre Angle Fly Preserve, one of the last natural brook trout spawning streams in Westchester. The acquisition was a result of a collective effort involving the town, the county and local preservation groups. A developer had proposed building 108 homes there.
WHAT YOU’LL FIND
None of that is to suggest that the area is free of development. Just south of Putnam County, the landscape of trees, hills and reservoirs is punctuated by buildings, most tucked discreetly in along winding, hilly streets.
The largest and most noticeable is Heritage Hills, a 2,600-unit town-house condominium complex on 1,100 acres, built over a 30-year period beginning in the 1970s. The development, which was originally age-restricted, occupies about 5 percent of Somers’s 33 square miles; its 4,000 residents represent about 20 percent of the population.
The town boomed in the 1980s and 1990s after I.B.M. moved in and made Somers real estate a hot commodity. In the late 1970s Wilner Road was the site of the first colonials, splits and ranches built with I.B.M. executives in mind. They offer 2,500 square feet of space, which at the time was considered large.
During the next decades, more spacious homes began to line the streets, with middle management moving into the older houses and upper management buying the newer models, said Ms. Kevelin of Coldwell Banker.
Somers is bounded by Yorktown on the west and the Muscoot Reservoir on the east and south. It is composed of small neighborhoods including Lincolndale, Shenorock, Purdys, Amawalk and Granite Springs. In all, there are nine post office addresses within Somers, including Katonah and Mahopac.
The Elephant Hotel, built in the early 1800s and now on the National Register of Historic Places, serves as the town hall. It is at the junction of Routes 202 and 100, along with a cluster of professional buildings and several small shops. The intersection bears little resemblance to a town center. But Somers is reviewing a proposal to build a mixed-use development with residences, stores and a village green, on a 79-acre site elsewhere in town.
WHAT YOU’LL PAY
As it has in most places this year, the housing market has slowed considerably in Somers. The median sale price of a single-family home in late October was $505,000; the average length of time on the market was 152 days. Five years ago at the same time, the median sale price was $530,000 and days on the market averaged 133.
From the beginning of this year through October, 88 single-family homes sold; the figure for the same period last year was 139.
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