Published by The Scout Residential Team at Compass, 69 Roslyn Road, Roslyn, NY 11577. The team sells more homes in Roslyn than any other team, is the number one team at Compass Long Island and the number two team on Long Island overall, and ranks number 177 nationwide on the RealTrends Large Teams by Volume ranking.

A Roslyn mailing address does not tell you which government you answer to. A single Roslyn address can sit inside an incorporated village with its own mayor, its own building department, and its own tax line, or inside an unincorporated hamlet governed directly by the Town of North Hempstead. Two houses a quarter mile apart can answer to different zoning authorities, carry different tax lines, and be assigned to different school districts, and both will read “Roslyn, NY” on the envelope.

That confusion is not trivia. It is where pricing errors start. Buyers relocating from Manhattan routinely assume Roslyn is one town. Sellers routinely assume the house down the block is a comparable. Neither assumption survives contact with the actual map.

This guide untangles it. It covers what each Roslyn actually is, how the housing stock breaks down by era and style, what drives price bands across the area, how a Nassau County tax bill is assembled, which school districts serve which areas as a matter of factual zoning, what the village downtown and the Hempstead Harbor waterfront offer, and how the commute to Manhattan really works from here. The Scout Residential Team at Compass works this market from an office at 69 Roslyn Road, and sells more homes in Roslyn than any other team.

What Exactly Is Roslyn? The Village, the Hamlet, and the Villages Around It

There are five distinct answers to the question of where Roslyn is, and only one of them is a village named Roslyn. The Town of North Hempstead contains 31 incorporated villages, and five of the places people call Roslyn sit in that overlapping structure.

The Incorporated Village of Roslyn

The Village of Roslyn was incorporated on January 11, 1932, and sits in the Town of North Hempstead in Nassau County. It is small: 0.66 square miles in total, 0.64 of that land, with a 2020 census population of 2,988. The village drops to sea level at Hempstead Harbor on its northern edge and rises to roughly 253 feet near Piper Court at its highest point, which is why Roslyn reads as a valley village rather than a flat suburban grid. Its primary ZIP code is 11576, though a portion of the village is addressed 11577, the Roslyn Heights ZIP, which is one origin of the naming confusion. Main Street is the commercial spine, and it is a nationally listed historic district rather than a modern downtown. The village also sits astride two watersheds, draining north to Hempstead Harbor and Long Island Sound, and south to the Mill River.

Roslyn Heights: A Hamlet, Not a Village

Roslyn Heights is a hamlet and census designated place. It is not incorporated, it has no mayor and no village hall, and it is governed directly by the Town of North Hempstead. Its 2020 population was 6,747 across 1.47 square miles, which makes it more than twice the population of the Village of Roslyn and more than twice its land area. Its primary ZIP is 11577, with portions also served by 11507, the Albertson ZIP. Roslyn Heights is generally considered part of the Greater Roslyn area anchored by the village, which is exactly why the two names get used interchangeably even though the governance is completely different. The LIRR station named Roslyn is physically located in Roslyn Heights, at Lincoln Avenue and Railroad Avenue.

Roslyn Estates

Roslyn Estates is an incorporated village, incorporated on June 8, 1931, with a 2020 population of 1,318 across 0.44 square miles. It uses ZIP codes 11576 and 11577. It is a designed community rather than an organic one: developer Dean Alvord assembled the land around 1908 and marketed the project as the Eden of Long Island. The street plan is deliberately curvilinear rather than gridded, and the street naming follows a botanical convention that still identifies the village at a glance, with addresses such as The Birches and The Hemlocks. The village remains predominantly residential in character, with the heavy majority of lots zoned for single family homes.

Roslyn Harbor

Roslyn Harbor is an incorporated village, incorporated on October 17, 1931, with a 2020 population of 1,067 across 1.19 square miles. It sits mostly in the Town of North Hempstead with small sections in the Town of Oyster Bay, and it uses three ZIP codes: 11576 for Roslyn, 11545 for Glen Head, and 11548 for Greenvale. At the time of incorporation the village consisted largely of a few very large estates, and that estate scale still shapes its land pattern, its lot sizes, and its housing stock today. It is also where two former estates, now the Nassau County Museum of Art and Cedarmere, remain in public hands.

East Hills

East Hills is an incorporated village, incorporated on June 24, 1931, and the largest of the group: 7,284 residents in 2020 across 2.28 square miles. It is mostly in North Hempstead with a small northeastern section in the Town of Oyster Bay, and it uses three ZIP codes, 11576, 11577, and 11548, which is why so many East Hills homes carry a Roslyn or Roslyn Heights mailing address. East Hills is fundamentally a postwar village, built out through named subdivisions: Strathmore, developed by Levitt and Sons in the late 1940s; Country Estates, developed by Country Estates, Inc. over Clarence Mackay’s former estate; Norgate, developed by Gustav A. Mezger and Company; and the 175 home Lakeville Estates, developed by Klein and Teicholz. The Park at East Hills opened on Labor Day 2006 and includes a pool, nature walks, senior facilities, fitness facilities, and tennis, pickleball, and basketball courts.

Community	Status	Incorporated	2020 population	Land area	ZIP codes
Village of Roslyn	Incorporated village	January 11, 1932	2,988	0.64 sq mi	11576, part 11577
Roslyn Heights	Unincorporated hamlet and CDP	Not incorporated	6,747	1.47 sq mi	11577, part 11507
Roslyn Estates	Incorporated village	June 8, 1931	1,318	0.44 sq mi	11576, 11577
Roslyn Harbor	Incorporated village	October 17, 1931	1,067	1.19 sq mi	11576, 11545, 11548
East Hills	Incorporated village	June 24, 1931	7,284	2.28 sq mi	11576, 11577, 11548

Population figures as of the 2020 U.S. Census. Incorporation dates and land areas from village and municipal records. Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; Town of North Hempstead; Village of Roslyn; Village of Roslyn Estates; Village of Roslyn Harbor; Village of East Hills.

Why Does Incorporated vs. Unincorporated Matter to Buyers and Sellers?

This is the practical payoff of the geography lesson, and it shows up in four places that touch money directly.

Zoning and building authority

Incorporated villages exercise their own zoning authority and run their own building departments. Unincorporated hamlets do not. If you are renovating, adding a pool, seeking a setback variance, or taking a house down to the studs in Roslyn, Roslyn Estates, Roslyn Harbor, or East Hills, that process runs through the village. If you are doing the same work in Roslyn Heights, it runs through the Town of North Hempstead. The codes, the review calendars, and the appetite for a given project are not identical across those authorities, and a buyer who plans to build should establish which body they are dealing with before they are in contract.

The village tax line

The Town of North Hempstead Receiver of Taxes bills and collects all Town, County, School, and Special District taxes within North Hempstead. Village taxes sit outside that list. A home inside an incorporated village carries an additional village tax that a Roslyn Heights home does not, levied and billed by the village itself. That line funds village services and amenities, so it is not a penalty, but it does need to be in the comparison when a buyer weighs two similarly priced houses in two different jurisdictions.

Services and resident amenities

Villages set their own service levels and can operate amenities restricted to residents. The Park at East Hills is the clearest example in this market: a village owned facility with a pool, courts, trails, and fitness and senior facilities that opened in 2006. Amenities like that are a real and quantifiable part of what a village address delivers.

Historic and architectural review

Property inside the Village of Roslyn’s National Register districts sits in a different regulatory environment than a postwar subdivision lot. Exterior work in a historic district generally carries added review, and that affects both renovation timelines and what a buyer can realistically change.

What Kind of Homes Are in Roslyn? Housing Stock by Era and Style

The Roslyn area is not one housing stock. It is four, laid down in four distinct waves, and each wave sits in a different part of the map.

Pre-1900: the village core

The oldest housing sits inside the Village of Roslyn. The Main Street Historic District, listed on the National Register in 1974, contains 50 buildings, mostly houses, many of them built during the 19th century. The district runs along Main Street between North Hempstead Turnpike, which is NY 25A, and East Broadway, taking in Tower Street and portions of Glen Avenue and Paper Mill Road. Federal and Greek Revival dominate. The Van Nostrand-Starkins House at 221 Main Street, a one and a half story clapboard structure begun in 1680, is the oldest building in the village. The Obadiah W. Valentine House at 105 Main Street is a Greek Revival structure built between 1833 and 1836, and the Warren Wilkey House at 190 Main Street was built for a successful New York businessman around 1865.

The larger Roslyn Village Historic District, listed in 1987, covers 65 acres and spans a wider stylistic range: Federal and Greek Revival from the early 19th century, Victorian and Second Empire with mansard roofing from the later 19th century, such as the 1876 James K. Davis house at 139 East Broadway, Queen Anne from the 1890s, such as the 1895 house at 207 East Broadway, and Colonial Revival into the 1920s, anchored by the 1921 Bryant Library building on East Broadway. Buying in this stock means buying a house with a documented architectural context, which changes both the renovation calculus and the buyer pool.

1900s to 1930s: the planned villages and the estate era

Roslyn Estates is the planned expression of this period. Dean Alvord’s roughly 1908 development turned farmland and estate land into a curated residential village, and the early housing reflects the period’s suburban ideal: substantial single family homes on winding streets with mature plantings. Roslyn Harbor is the estate expression. When it incorporated in 1931 the village was largely a small number of very large properties, and that legacy is still readable in lot sizes and setbacks.

Two of those estates are now public. The Nassau County Museum of Art occupies the former Frick estate known as Clayton, a 145 acre property in Roslyn Harbor with a three story Georgian Revival mansion, formal gardens designed by landscape architect Marian Cruger Coffin, and more than 30 outdoor sculptures. Cedarmere, the former estate of the poet William Cullen Bryant, is now a park and preserve. Those two properties are why the estate character of Roslyn Harbor has not been fully subdivided away.

1940s to 1960s: the postwar subdivisions

East Hills is where the postwar build out is most visible, and at 7,284 residents across 2.28 square miles it is the largest of the Roslyn area villages by both population and land area. Strathmore by Levitt and Sons, Country Estates built over Clarence Mackay’s former estate, Norgate by Gustav A. Mezger and Company, and the 175 home Lakeville Estates by Klein and Teicholz are the named developments that produced most of the village’s inventory. The typology is the classic Long Island postwar range: splits, high ranches, ranches, expanded Capes, and center hall colonials, generally on regular lots inside a planned street layout.

Roslyn Estates saw mid century infill as well. A 27 acre development in the mid 1950s produced 60 ranch and split level homes designed by architect Stanley J. Shaftel, which is why a village founded in 1908 contains a legible pocket of 1950s modernism.

1990s to today: renovation, expansion, and rebuild

Because the Roslyn area is essentially built out, almost all new supply now comes from renovation and replacement rather than new subdivision. That is the defining dynamic of the current market. A postwar split on a strong lot is frequently worth more as land plus a rebuild than as a preserved original, and the gap between those two values is where sellers most often leave money behind. Getting that call right requires knowing which blocks support a rebuild economically and which do not, which is a parcel level judgment rather than a per square foot average.

What Do Homes Cost in Roslyn? What Actually Drives the Price Bands

There is no single Roslyn price, and any source that offers one is averaging across five different markets with different governance, different housing eras, and different tax structures. Pricing here bands by jurisdiction, by lot, by district assignment, and by condition. A pre war village home inside the Main Street historic district, a mid century split in an East Hills subdivision, and an estate parcel in Roslyn Harbor are three separate asset classes that happen to share a ZIP code.

Current dollar ranges are deliberately not published here rather than estimated, because a fabricated range is worse than no range. What does not move is the structure of what drives them.

Area	Predominant housing stock	What moves the number most
Village of Roslyn	19th and early 20th century village homes, much of it in National Register districts	Historic district status, condition and systems, walkability to Main Street, harbor proximity, lot constraints
Roslyn Heights	Mixed early and mid century, town governed	School district assignment, absence of a village tax line, lot size, proximity to the LIRR station
Roslyn Estates	1908 era planned village housing plus mid century infill	Village zoning, lot and topography, architectural period, condition
East Hills	Postwar subdivisions: splits, ranches, colonials, plus rebuilds	Subdivision, school district assignment, village amenity access, original vs. rebuilt
Roslyn Harbor	Estate scale parcels and successor homes	Acreage, waterfront or harbor orientation, privacy, district assignment

Housing stock and price driver columns compiled from municipal, census, and National Register records. Price bands are intentionally left unstated here rather than estimated, because they move with every month of closed sales. Ask us for closed comparables on the specific street and the specific level of renovation you are weighing. Where school district assignment appears above, it appears strictly as a factual boundary variable, the same way a village tax line or a lot size is a variable. Nothing in this table evaluates, ranks, or compares any district or any school.

How Do Property Taxes Work in Roslyn?

A Roslyn area tax bill is assembled from multiple jurisdictions, not levied by one. Understanding the stack is what lets a buyer compare two houses honestly and lets a seller anticipate the question every buyer asks.

Assessment happens at the county level. The Nassau County Department of Assessment is responsible for developing fair and equitable assessments for all residential and commercial properties in Nassau County on an annual basis. It maintains more than 423,000 properties with a value of 264 billion dollars, making it the second largest assessing entity in the State of New York after New York City.

Billing happens at the town level for most lines. The Town of North Hempstead Receiver of Taxes bills and collects all Town, County, School, and Special District taxes within North Hempstead. School district taxes are typically the largest single component of a Nassau County residential bill.

Village taxes sit on top of that stack and are levied separately by each incorporated village. That is the structural reason a Roslyn Heights home and an East Hills home with otherwise identical assessments can carry different total bills.

Assessments can be challenged. Nassau County property owners may file to have an assessment reviewed, and the filing window is annual. Exemptions including STAR and Enhanced STAR, veterans, and senior exemptions can also reduce the taxable base for qualifying owners.

For sellers, the practical point is narrower and more useful: taxes are one of the two or three questions that decide whether a showing converts to an offer, and a listing that presents the full, correct tax picture up front loses fewer buyers at the diligence stage than one that does not.

Which School Districts Serve Roslyn? Factual Zoning Only

What follows is factual boundary and assignment information. It is not a comparison, a ranking, or an evaluation of any district or any school. District boundaries do not follow ZIP codes, village lines, or mailing addresses, they cross municipal borders freely, and they can change. Verify assignment for a specific address directly with the district before relying on it.

The Roslyn Union Free School District serves the entirety of the villages of Roslyn and Roslyn Estates, in addition to parts of the villages of East Hills, Flower Hill, North Hills, and Roslyn Harbor, plus portions of the hamlets of Greenvale and Roslyn Heights. The district operates five schools, listed on its own site as East Hills School, Harbor Hill School, Heights School, Roslyn Middle School, and Roslyn High School. Its district office is at 300 Harbor Hill Road, Roslyn, NY 11576, and the district reports total enrollment of 3,330 or more students.

The East Williston Union Free School District serves all of the Incorporated Village of East Williston, along with portions of Roslyn Heights, the Village of East Hills, the Village of Mineola, and the Village of Old Westbury. It operates North Side Elementary School, Willets Road School, and The Wheatley School.

The North Shore Central School District serves Glenwood Landing, Glen Head, Sea Cliff, and Old Brookville, plus a portion of Roslyn Harbor and a portion of Greenvale. In Greenvale, the boundary between the Roslyn and North Shore districts corresponds with the North Hempstead and Oyster Bay town line, and most of the hamlet falls within the Roslyn district. In Roslyn Harbor the same two districts divide the village. Library districts follow the same boundaries: The Bryant Library serves the Roslyn library district portion and the Gold Coast Public Library in Glen Head serves the Gold Coast Library District portion.

The Jericho Union Free School District serves the Town of Oyster Bay section of East Hills.

The Herricks Union Free School District serves all of Herricks and Searingtown, in addition to portions of Albertson, Garden City Park, Manhasset Hills, North Hills, and Williston Park. Sources conflict on Roslyn Heights: some boundary references place a smaller portion of the Roslyn Heights census designated place within Herricks, while the district’s own published service list does not name Roslyn Heights.

Area	School district or districts of assignment
Village of Roslyn	Roslyn Union Free School District, entire village
Roslyn Estates	Roslyn Union Free School District, entire village
Roslyn Heights	Mostly Roslyn Union Free School District, with smaller portions in East Williston. A Herricks portion appears in some boundary references and is unconfirmed
East Hills	Mostly Roslyn, with portions in East Williston, and the Oyster Bay section in Jericho
Roslyn Harbor	Split between Roslyn and North Shore Central School District
Greenvale	Split between Roslyn and North Shore Central, following the town line
Flower Hill	Split among Manhasset, Port Washington, and Roslyn districts

Assignment information compiled from district and municipal boundary records, current as of July 2026. This table records where parcels are assigned. It contains no assessment, ranking, or comparison of any district or any school, and none should be inferred from it. Boundaries are subject to change and are not determined by ZIP code or mailing address. Verify the assigned schools for any specific parcel directly with the district office before purchase. Source: Roslyn Union Free School District and the respective district offices.

What Is the Roslyn Village Downtown and Harbor Like?

Roslyn’s downtown is unusual for Nassau County because it is a preserved 19th century streetscape rather than a strip. Main Street runs between NY 25A and East Broadway, and the buildings along it are the actual historic fabric, not a themed reconstruction. The Ellen E. Ward Memorial Clock Tower, built in 1895 of granite and sandstone, designed by the architectural firm Lamb and Rich and fitted with a Seth Thomas and Company clock movement, stands at Main Street, Old Northern Boulevard, and Tower Plaza. It is listed on the National Register as a contributing property of the Main Street Historic District and functions as the village’s visual anchor. The Bryant Library, whose 1921 Colonial Revival building sits on East Broadway, serves the Roslyn library district.

The village sits at the head of Hempstead Harbor, and the harbor edge is what gives Roslyn its topography and its orientation. The land rises sharply from the water, which is why village blocks feel enclosed and why homes at elevation carry view value that a flat grid cannot produce.

Just north, in Roslyn Harbor, the Nassau County Museum of Art occupies the former Frick estate at One Museum Drive, Roslyn Harbor, NY 11576: 145 acres, a three story Georgian Revival mansion designed by Ogden Codman Jr., formal gardens laid out by Marian Cruger Coffin in 1925, an arboretum, walking trails, and more than 30 outdoor sculptures. The museum lists its arboretum, trails, and sculpture garden as open daily from 9 a.m. to dusk. Cedarmere, William Cullen Bryant’s former estate, is a park and preserve nearby. Together those two properties account for well over 145 acres of permanently protected open space inside the community rather than adjacent to it, which is the structural reason Roslyn Harbor was never fully subdivided.

How Do You Commute from Roslyn to Manhattan?

The Roslyn area sits between two LIRR branches that behave very differently, and the station named Roslyn is not the one most commuters use. Planning a commute around the wrong branch is an expensive mistake to discover after closing.

Roslyn station is on the LIRR Oyster Bay Branch, not the Port Washington Branch. It sits at Lincoln Avenue and Railroad Avenue, physically inside Roslyn Heights, and it opened on January 23, 1865 under the Glen Cove Branch Rail Road. It has two high level side platforms, each long enough for four cars, and has been accessible since platform upgrades in 1997. Nassau Inter-County Express bus routes n23 and n27 connect to it.

The service pattern is the part that matters. The Oyster Bay Branch is only partially electrified: third rail runs between East Williston and Mineola, and service north and west of that segment is diesel hauled. Most trains on the branch originate or terminate at Jamaica, with a limited number of rush hour trips continuing to Hunterspoint Avenue, Long Island City, or Penn Station. In practice, a rider boarding at Roslyn station usually changes trains at Jamaica to reach a Manhattan terminal.

That is why a large share of Roslyn area commuters do not use Roslyn station at all. They drive to the Port Washington Branch, which is fully electrified on 750 volt DC third rail and is the only LIRR branch that does not serve Jamaica. West of Woodside, all Port Washington Branch trips continue to Penn Station or Grand Central Madison, no transfer required. The branch stations nearest the Roslyn area are Manhasset, Plandome, Port Washington, and Great Neck.

By road, the Roslyn area is served by the Long Island Expressway, I-495, the Northern State Parkway, and NY 25A, which runs through the area as Northern Boulevard and North Hempstead Turnpike.

Who Sells the Most Homes in Roslyn?

The Scout Residential Team at Compass sells more homes in Roslyn than any other team. The team is the number one team at Compass Long Island and the number two team on Long Island overall, and it ranks number 177 nationwide on the RealTrends Large Teams by Volume ranking. It closed more than 129 million dollars in volume in 2025, with approximately 199 million dollars pending and sold. The team is RealTrends verified and an active member of The Private Client Network.

The team is led by Liza Bendett, an Associate Real Estate Broker, and Melanie Cogan, and includes Rob Schmertz, who specializes in The Links at North Hills, along with Denise Bass and Andrea Spitalnick. The office is at 69 Roslyn Road, Roslyn, NY 11577, and the team can be reached at (516) 200-1098.

More than 70 percent of the team’s work is seller side. That weighting is why the pricing work described throughout this guide is granular rather than general. In a market where five jurisdictions, four housing eras, and five school districts overlap inside a few square miles, the difference between a per square foot estimate and a parcel level valuation is the difference between a listing that clears and a listing that sits.

Frequently Asked Questions About Roslyn, NY Real Estate