Inside the gorgeous green and leafy neighborhood tucked away in the Bronx

A pocket of lush greenery and luxury sits a short train ride from Manhattan, located in a borough with the highest violent crime rate of any in New York City .

The Riverdale area of the Bronx is a hidden gem - where mature trees drape over multi-million dollar mansions in a woodsy enclave along the Hudson River.

In Riverdale, residents can hike, golf, and even go horseback riding just minutes from the bustling metropolis.

'How did I not know this place existed?' is a phrase Evan Geoffroy, 46, hears from friends when they visit his nearly $2 million five-bedroom home, he told the Wall Street Journal.

Geoffroy recently moved there with his partner and four young children from a rental in Harlem.

He was raised in Connecticut and grew up driving through Riverdale on trips to Manhattan.

When he wanted a place with a yard to raise his children, he immediately thought of Riverdale. He now commutes to Manhattan twice a week from his gorgeous new home.

'It always had this sort of magic aura to me,' he told the Journal. 'As we got into the city, the buildings would start to get bigger, it would start to get denser, and then, all of a sudden, there was this beautiful, picturesque residential neighborhood.'

Riverdale has long attracted well-to-do New Yorkers seeking more space, nature, and top-tier schools compared to other parts of the city.

The Riverdale neighborhood, which includes the sought-after Fieldston area, boasted a median home sale price of $1.275 million in October - up a staggering 16 percent from 2020.

Fieldston recently became the first Bronx neighborhood to appear on PropertyShark's list of New York City's 50 most expensive neighborhoods by median sale price, the Journal reported.

The median sale price of a single-family home in Fieldston was $1.8 million in October.

This year, a 14,000-square-foot home in the nearby Villanova Heights subdivision is set to hit the market for a jaw-dropping $7.25 million, while Georgian-style residence in Central Riverdale set a new record for the area when it sold for $7 million.

The abundance of lush greenery, hiking trails, golf courses, and horse stables in Riverdale Park and Van Cortlandt Park make the area feel worlds away from the bustling Bronx. Yet it's just a 30-minute train ride to Midtown Manhattan.

Marcia and Meyer Uranovsky, a South African artist couple, bought a fixer-upper just outside a tony Fieldston enclave back in 1997 for a mere $300,000.

Ready to downsize after years of painstaking renovations, the Uranovskys recently put their 3,600-square-foot Tudor-style home on the market for $1.8 million.

The home went into contract just a month later.

When the couple purchased the home, no one else wanted it because it was in such poor shape, Meyer, 85, told the Journal. 'But it was possible to live in the house and renovate at the same time,' he said.

The Uranovskys renovated the entire home themselves - making everything from custom cabinetry out of old French wine boxes to sculpting the original stucco walls in the foyer to look like stone.

They even transformed the basement into an art studio with heated floors.

'It's become a part of us,' said Marcia, 77, a former designer and fabricator for Martha Stewart.

They said leaving their home is bittersweet, but they are happy that others will have the chance to love it as they did.