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Westchester Real Estate: Pleasantville - Best Place for Culture Lovers

Why live someplace boring? These neighborhoods are places to be passionate about!

The Village Bookstore, on Washington Avenue, is just one of many cultural destinations in Pleasantville.

In Pleasantville, you can experience your culture up close and personal. It’s a small village, but some of the biggest names in media can be found there chatting, schmoozing, and even performing for friends and neighbors as well as paying guests. The Jacob Burns Film Center really keeps the village on the map with guests like Academy Award-winning directors Ron Howard, Steven Spielberg, and Jonathan Demme. Actors Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth Olsen, and Rob Lowe are among the dozens and dozens of film luminaries who frequent the center and speak at its events.

Live theater is alive and growing in Pleasantville, too. Two existing groups, the Little Village Playhouse and the Chappaqua Drama Group, have merged under the sobriquet Arc Stages, with plans to open a new theater and performance space at 220 Tompkins Avenue. Vanessa Williams is among the stars advising the organization.

The tiny Village Bookstore is another place for a little cultural schmoozing. Washington may not have slept there, but Bill Clinton teamed up with the shop to promote his latest book, Back to Work—and so has nearly every other Westchester author who appreciates the chance to meet and greet his or her readers.

Music fans can sidle right up to the world-class performers, too, at the Pleasantville Music Festival, an intimate gathering of musicians from all parts of the melodic/rhythmic spectrum. Last year, Marc Cohn, Sonny Landreth, Nicole Atkins and the Black Sea, Augustana, and Scars on 45 joined a raft of other singer/songwriters, entertainers, interpreters, and modern-day troubadours at Parkway Field, the site of the July festival.