Those on the hill coexist with wildlife and occasionally deal with their own weather. “It could be snowing at my house,” Mr. Goldberg said, “and by the time I get to downtown, it isn’t.”

Janice and Eric Johannesen, who previously lived in the Salt Lake City area, wound up on the hill last year after Mr. Johannesen, 46, took a technology job with an investment firm in New Jersey. They had thought of returning to Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where they lived before moving out West, but were drawn to Hawthorne by a private Christian school similar to the one their three children attended in Utah.

The Johannesens paid $649,900 for a four-bedroom, four-bathroom raised ranch on a half acre bordering woods, in a neighborhood without sidewalks. “To afford something that big in Bay Ridge was not an option,” said Ms. Johannesen, 43, a health coach. “We knew we wanted the suburbs.”

They have found their new town to be low-key and friendly. Ms. Johannesen pointed to the youth sports programs, the farmers’ market in the library parking lot and summer concerts at the bandshell next to the community pool. The family’s Christmas tree came via the volunteer fire department’s fund-raiser. “Hey, we figured let’s buy a Christmas tree and support our community at the same time,” Ms. Johannesen said.

Image 89 MAZUR PLACE | A four-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom house, built in 1987 on 0.47 acre, listed for $599,999. 732-549-9500 Credit... Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

What You’ll Find

With a population of 19,000 in a little more than three square miles, Hawthorne borders seven other municipalities, including urban Paterson and the upscale Bergen County communities of Wyckoff, Glen Rock and Ridgewood. Relatively few New Yorkers buy in Hawthorne, although it has rail service and is accessible to highways, including Route 208, which cuts through town and leads to Route 4 and the George Washington Bridge.

“Most of the New York City crowd filters into Bergen,” said Robert J. Lucibello, a broker associate with Van Orden Realty in Hawthorne and a lifelong resident of Hawthorne. “We’re a Passaic town.”