Westchester to Long Island (New Rochelle, Rye: buyer, school district, price)

[lizzy123]

We are moving from Westchester to Long Island within the next year. I love Westchester and am looking for a town or village on Long Island that has the same feel. Can anyone offer me any advise? Many thanks. (Nassau county not Suffolk)

[MrBitterness]

Not much. Every time my wife and I visit her aunt in Westchester it's like another world to me. The closest I can think of in Nassau would be Locust Valley, but your price point does come into play.

[InfoSeeker52]

What's your price point? In general, the North Shore is probably closer to what you're looking for, but the North Shore of Nassau County can get so pricey, it's hard to even begin to make recommendations without knowing your budget.

[S.I.B.]

budget? what particular part of Westchester are you looking to replicate?

[babysladkaya]

This is a very generic question, my understanding is what Westchester towns are also quite different, for example, Larchmont has a very nice downtown, New Rochelle is quite urbanized, while some towns are more spread out, you need to give particular characteristics of the town you are in to find a match on LI. In general, I would advise contacting Allison Bernstein, there was a story about her firm in the NY Times, she basically puts together a profile of you as a buyer and matches you with towns, and she looks at things like, for example, a family has money, wants great school, however, are very down to Earth and laid back, they won't do well in town such as Scarsdale, so she would suggest a town that also has strong schools but does not have the cut-throat environment of Scarsdale school district. Or, mom is a working mom and most likely won't feel comfortable or make friends easily in town where women are predominantly stay home.

[squishface]

All I can tell you is that you need to stick to the north shore if you want any resemblance to Westchester. The south shore is like another planet.

[AKA Bubbleup]

A generalization: Westchestrians can be summed up in a single multiple choice question:

A) I'm like most people in Westchester
B) There's no one like ME in Westchester
C) Both A and B are true

If you answer B, you might find the following towns very easy to acclimate to:

Boondocks:
Center Island
Sands Point
Kings Point
Roslyn Estates
Muttontown
Upper Brookville

Downtown feel:
Garden City
Manhasset
Munsey Park
North Hills

[dcasty]

key question is which Westchester town are you looking to replicate- there's a broad range between Elmsford- Ossining- Mt. Kisco and towns like Scarsdale and Rye.

[Elke Mariotti]

IMHO without at least a budget, any recommendation is most likely meaningless.

[Peppin0]

Welcome to Long Island. It's basically Westchester, except with better beaches, more people, more traffic, less space, less elevation, less lakes, less rivers, less bears, and more accents.

Anywhere on the North Shore between Roslyn and Setauket will be most similar to southern Westchester than anywhere else in Long Island. There's nothing really like northern Westchester here though.