Today Riverside is barely two square miles of winding lanes and waterfront between Cos Cob and Old Greenwich, split by Interstate 95 and the Boston Post Road and threaded by the Metro-North line that built it. The c.1760 Samuel Ferris House, the Ferris family’s old Cape farmhouse, still stands near the Post Road. It is a quiet, patrician corner of the Gold Coast — sailboats off the harbor, the old cast-iron bridge, and a farmhouse-to-mansion arc along the Mianus River.
What Atwater and Lockwood built still shapes the place. They laid out winding shoreline lanes, donated land for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 1876, and tied Riverside to Manhattan with the New York, New Haven & Hartford line — an hour’s ride that turned a farming neck into a commuter’s Eden. Through the 1880s and into the new century, Victorian cottages and Shingle-style houses rose on leafy lots along Riverside Avenue, the old “Potato Road.” By the 1930s the neighborhood held some of the highest real-estate values in the region.
Why People Visit Riverside
Riverside rewards visitors who like the quiet, watery side of the Gold Coast: sailboats on the Mianus, shaded streets, and a handful of real landmarks close together. Add the Sound-side parks and the easy ride to the city, and the genteel calm makes its own case.
