An idyllic New Jersey suburb dotted with spell binding ancient mansions continues to trap rich patrons in spite of town’s creepy historical past.
Westfield has a sturdy attraction, very similar to commuter suburbs akin to Maplewood and Montclair, and its house values and gross sales are conserving secure even because the state’s marketplace softens from pandemic-era heights.
“It is the suburb you dream of,” agent Michele Beaulieu of Keller Williams Realty Premier Houses of Westfield tells Realtor.com®. “It has the appeal, get admission to to town, eating places and buying groceries, just right faculties, game, and great parks. Other people do not need to transfer out.”
One of the vital dealer’s fresh listings—a $1.92 million, 126-year-old, four-bedroom, 3.5-bath, meticulously maintained and upgraded Victorian Colonial—offered in simply six days.
Whilst Westfield’s $1.23 million median ticket is double that of New Jersey’s $554,500, it is value noting that the suburb’s offered median value is even upper at $1.4 million.
Beaulieu says bidding wars with over-ask ultimate gross sales are commonplace, even though the marketplace is slowing down rather—the selection of gives do not pass into the double digits up to they did closing 12 months.
“It is quintessentially Westfield,” she says of her temporarily snapped-up list at 626 Street. “It has a large open porch on a large boulevard, the ceilings are tall, the rooms are spacious, the home windows are large and shiny, it is by no means darkish. And there is a cast really feel to it that you aren’t getting with a brand new area.
“I will leave out coming right here.”
The darker aspect of Westfield
A two minute stroll clear of Beaulieu’s list is a beautiful Dutch Colonial that was once the website of a terrifying thriller that impressed a Netflix miniseries.
In 2014, the circle of relatives who lived there, Derek and Maria Broaddus and their 3 small children, made headlines once they attempted shifting out 8 months after buying the dream house for $1.5 million.
The circle of relatives sought after to escape because of a sequence of creepy, threatening letters despatched by means of an unknown particular person signing them “The Watcher.”
The home in any case offered in 2019, and the brand new citizens have now not been a goal.
To this present day, the perpetrator has now not been recognized. Passion within the tale grew to a fervor when, in 2022, Netflix made an eight-part miniseries in regards to the chilling occasions.
“It was once stored fairly confidential when it was once going down,” says Beaulieu, who lived just a block clear of the home on the time of the spookiness. “I did not find out about it till the tale broke.”
Even so, she’s now not keen on the sequence, calling it “means off” and “sensationalized.”
Then there is town’s maximum grotesque tournament—the John Checklist murders. In November 1971, the out-of-work accountant shot to loss of life his spouse, mom, and 3 kids of their 19-room Westfield mansion, Breeze Knoll on Hillside Ave. The assassin remained at the lam for almost 18 years, even remarrying.
On the time, it was once the most important crime within the state because the 1932 kidnapping and loss of life of Charles Lindbergh Jr. It came about close to Hopewell, not up to an hour’s force away.
In 1989, Checklist was once apprehended because of being featured on the preferred Fox tv sequence “The us’s Maximum Sought after.” He sooner or later confessed to his heinous crimes, blaming them on monetary difficulties and non secular paranoia.
The homicide mansion now not exists—it was once intentionally burned down in 1972, even though the arson case was once by no means solved. A brand new brick Colonial sits at the assets and is these days value $3.2 million, consistent with Realtor.com estimates. The website continues to draw crime aficionados.
An image of the home posted to the Fb workforce Bizarre New Jersey in October 2025 drew a move of feedback.
“Westfield is wild for a quiet suburban the town,” stated one.
The recognition of Westfield
Whilst the suburb has observed a 23.3% year-over-year decline in house values, Realtor.com senior economist Hannah Jones says the drop “most probably displays composition results greater than true value decline at that scale.”
In different phrases, median value could be down as a result of there are extra condos or smaller houses or older houses in deficient situation that experience offered previously 12 months, fairly than as a result of underlying values are declining.
Native agents record that houses get snapped up virtually once they hit the marketplace, and the knowledge backs that up. Westfield houses promote in an average 16 days as opposed to 32 statewide.
“That is notable as it approach Westfield hasn’t slowed in any respect in spite of the plain value drop, which additional helps the concept the median decline is a combination shift fairly than a softening marketplace,” says Jones.
With handiest 35 for-sale listings, the community is “extremely constrained,” says Jones. “New Jersey’s stock restoration is going on in large part out of doors of top rate markets like Westfield.”
“Westfield has a tendency to be the best choice for other folks in our house,” Maryalice Ryan of Coldwell Banker confirms to Realtor.com. “It is roughly the gold usual.”
She says houses within the “candy spot” between $1 million and $2 million generally tend to promote their first weekend on marketplace.
With a colourful downtown house filled with retail and eating places (together with the Addams Tavern), walkability now not commonplace in a suburb, a New Jersey transit railroad station, and top-rated faculties, Westfield stays well-liked by former town dwellers.
However Ryan says a lot of her shoppers are coming from throughout the house, “proper sizing” to both smaller or better houses, relying on their wishes.
Fairly than construct a pricey addition, patrons are “biting the bullet” since rates of interest have softened and moving into the marketplace.
The Addams Circle of relatives
One of the crucial the town’s “wildness” is extra circle of relatives pleasant and thought to be an asset to the community.
The Addams Circle of relatives author, Charles Addams, was once born and raised in Westfield. Town celebrates its well-known son annually with AddamsFest, a monthlong pageant in October with occasions akin to Morticia and Gomez’s Masquerade Ball, Wednesday Night time Crawlers, and Depraved Home windows of Westfield.
Addams grew up in a house at 522 Elm Side road however were given his inspiration for his “altogether ooky” caricature circle of relatives from within reach 411 Elm Side road, a surprising however spooky-looking 1869 Victorian these days value an estimated $1.5 million.
Ryan calls town’s “large deal” over the Addams circle of relatives, “roughly a schtick. It is one thing all of us giggle about. A amusing factor to do.”
As for The Watcher area, she says that when the Netflix sequence got here out, she would see drivers slowing right down to gawk on the well-known home, however hasn’t spotted that in recent years. On this picturesque suburb, it is simple to let the darkish reminiscences fade.
