Oakhurst Community Spotlight

Neighborhood Spotlight – Oakhurst

OAKHURST IS a quiet neighborhood, with its namesake oaks shading modest midcentury homes. Businesses reflect the area’s diversity, from African hair-braiding shops to Morris Costumes, several day spas and salons, The Common Market, and an Indian-Nepali convenience store that stocks everything from hookah gear to food and booze.

For the most part, residents take pride in their property. At the corner of Chippendale Street and Mantle Court, tall tomato vines and bright-yellow flowers burst out of small plots in the Oakhurst Community Garden, located behind Oakhurst STEAM Academy. The school opened in 2015 as a partial magnet school for science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Previously, the building housed Oakhurst Elementary, but that closed in 2011 due to budget cuts.

Oakhurst first began growing after the Hudson Hosiery Company opened a mill on Monroe Road in the mid-1930s. a small mill village eventually developed, surrounded by fields and woodlands. Women who lived nearby could walk to work and earn $12 a week stitching together the delicate toe section of hosiery.
The mill was demolished in 2000, and today the lot is overgrown with grass and weeds, awaiting its transformation into a large, yet-to-be-named, mixed-use residential and retail center.

Moderna is new 26-home community, where prices for roughly 2,500-square-foot homes are creeping toward half a million dollars. The homes look like something imported from Southern California or Spain—white, stucco-like exteriors with flat roofs and floating staircases.

The community boasts a mix of new and old and is a popular location for new homeowners and renters. Property values have increased rapidly over the past 5 years, and a prime target location for investors and homeowners.