Modern retail hub with deep historical roots
History lives in Parsippany: whether it’s a Revolutionary era farmhouse or a midcentury Cape Cod, one is bound to encounter sights that span the ages. There’s even a designated historic district in the Mount Tabor section, with late 19th-century Victorians remaining as hymns to a time when Methodists founded a local summer retreat. Going even further back, the Parsippany Presbyterian Church is an enduring brick structure where people have been meeting since 1828. However, today Parsippany is quite modern, crossed by major retail corridors. The area is populous, too, with over 50,000 residents. "Parsippany is very large, with multiple zip codes," says Gloria LaForgia, a sales agent for Weichert Realtors and team lead of the Gloria LaForgia Real Estate Team. The neighborhood is 25 square miles. “Many people live and work there, it’s not just a commuter hub,” says Frank LaMorte broker associate with Latimer Realty. “There are a lot of offices, and industries like pharmaceuticals, located along Route 10.”
Lake cottages, million-dollar estates
When it comes to midcentury styles, the classic forms are on tap: Cape Cods, ranches and split-levels. These properties are placed in quiet suburban settings, surrounded by carpets of grass, priced in the $700,000 range. Especially near the southeastern portion around Lake Hiawatha, it’s possible to find smaller cottages that formerly served as summer homes, priced at $250,000. There’s also a lot of newer construction from the 2010s and 2020s priced in the million-dollar range, showing up as townhouses and single-owner homes. It’s easy to notice these as products of their time, given their strong contemporary features like bold colors, multiple gables and stone accents. Borrowing elements from colonial and Craftsman homes, it’s not uncommon for these sprawling properties to have five bedrooms.
Parsippany Hills High's internship program
The highly rated schools attract people to the area, says LaForgia, who had a client who refused to move to another town because of how well their children excelled in school. Neighborhood children can begin their education at Lake Parsippany Elementary, which earns an A-minus rating from Niche. Brooklawn Middle, which has a broad modernist façade of glass, earns an A. Parsippany Hills High receives a top rating with an A-plus. Seniors can participate in a program where they attend a career-based internship for the last month of school and be exempt from finals.
Veterans Memorial Park
Even though it’s not necessarily associated with an outdoorsy lifestyle, Parsippany does contain over 30 parks that are a variety of sizes. Veterans Memorial Park, for example, provides many ways to engage with the community on 17 acres of land, from relaxing on stone benches near monuments and cherry trees to enjoying the athletic facilities and walking the mile-long path. Residents also spend time around the water. “Lake Parsippany has beaches to lounge on, and people will take their non-motorized boats out,” says LaMorte. Golf is available at the Knoll Country Club or the Mount Tabor Country Club. Tours can be taken at the Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms, a 30-acre historic house museum and National Historic Landmark.
Shopping and dining in Parsippany
While much of the shopping and dining in Parsippany has a large suburban feel that requires a car, it’s possible to get an old-school small-town experience in the Lake Hiawatha district. Sidewalks will take pedestrians past mom-and-pop restaurants, dentist offices, nail salons and gas stations. But with two major highway routes running through the township, Parsippany overall presents a host of big-box retailers like Target, Marshalls and Home Depot. Grocery options range from Shop Rite to Wegmans to Whole Foods. Route 46 is populated by locally owned restaurants with snappy cosmopolitan names, like Tandoori Flames and Spice Grill. “Parsippany has one of the largest Indian populations in the state,” says LaMorte. Or there’s the option to cook Indian dishes at home, by shopping at Patel Brothers or Delight Big Bazaar, two Indian grocery stores. For more traditional eats, Tabor Road Tavern serves American food like burgers in a lodge atmosphere. Italian classics appear at Grato, where customers can order pasta dishes, pizza and entrees like chicken marsala and shrimp scampi. Fresh produce and artisan crafts can be picked up at a farmers market in Veterans Memorial Park, hosted every Friday from June to November in neighboring Parsippany.
Commuting to NYC on I-80, Route 46
Route 46 and Interstate 80 are the two major pathways running east-west through the neighborhood. The 30-mile drive to Manhattan can take anywhere from an hour or two, depending on traffic. But drivers can also go to train stations in Denville and Morris Plains, which feature New Jersey Transit lines that can take about 70 minutes to reach the city. At the Beverwyck Park and Ride, commuters can hop on a bus to Manhattan. "A lot of people who work in the city find that attractive, that they don't have to drive to another town to commute in," LaForgia says. Route 46 is also served by Lakeland Bus Lines, which will bring riders to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in about an hour. With a low crime score of 2 out of 10 on the CAP Index, residents enjoy freely navigating all corners of Parsippany.
