Generations Come and Generations Stay In Franklin Lakes

Franklin Lakes is a bit of the countryside in the midst of ever-developing Bergen County.

More and more of the borough’s 10,600 residents are second- and third-generation residents. Their parents or grandparents lived in the borough and they opted to live there themselves.

“I came here from the city and started a family, and it kind of starts and ends there,” Mayor Frank Bivona, a 22-year resident, told the Wall Street Journal. “What I was impressed the most about is the second- third-generation people who grew up here and decided to stay and raise their own families.

The average sale price of a home is about $1.04 million a 9 percent increase from last year. But fixer-upper houses do exist.

“You can buy a $900,000 teardown and put up a $3 million house. The town has enough ultra high-end real estate to support that,” Boswell said. “You have tons of foliage, tons of green, tons of landscaping, nice-sized lots, usually an acre or so — it gives you that feeling of space, that feeling that you can breathe.”

The borough is also home to new luxury home development owned by Toll Brothers. The 275-unit development, which will contain about 50 affordably-priced homes, will be built on the former High Mountain Golf Club.

“When my grandparents came here in the ‘30s, this was mainly farmland,” said Katharine Braun, a 49-year resident. “I stayed because I loved the country feel of it… it’s just a beautiful place to live.”

(Picture: Courtesy of Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty)