People move to Denville for one of three reasons: the train, the schools, or a lake. Usually some combination. What surprises new arrivals is how much the town is divided into distinct sections, each with its own rules and its own dues. Here is what to know before you sign anything.
The basics
Denville Township is in Morris County, New Jersey, with a population of 17,107 as of the 2020 Census, spread across 12.74 square miles. The ZIP code is 07834.
The nickname is the Hub of Morris County, and it is literal. Denville sits at the geographic center of the county where major roads and two rail lines converge. Interstate 80, Route 46, Route 10 and Route 53 all touch the township.
Denville runs on a Faulkner Act mayor and council form of government. Thomas W. Andes is mayor, with a term running through December 31, 2027.
The neighborhoods
Denville is not one housing market. The township contains a long list of distinct communities and localities: Cedar Lake, Cooks Pond, Cooper Lake, Franklin, Indian Lake, Lake Arrowhead, Lake Estling, Openaka Lake, Rock Ridge, Snake Hill, Union Hill and Mount Tabor.
The four major residential lake communities are Indian Lake, Cedar Lake, Rock Ridge and Lake Arrowhead. Buying into one of these usually means joining a lake association, which is the thing to nail down before you make an offer. Ask whether membership is mandatory, what the dues are, and what they actually get you. Indian Lake is the largest, with more than 1,000 homes around a 99-acre lake and three lifeguarded beaches in summer. Cedar Lake has more than 300 families, two sand beaches and a floating dock. Estling Lake is a small private summer community of roughly 60 houses.
We covered the full public and private breakdown, including the one place non-residents can actually swim, in our guide to Denville’s lakes and parks.
Mount Tabor is part of Denville Township and has its own character and its own stop on the Morristown Line, one station east of Denville.
Downtown, centered on Broadway and East Main Street, is the walkable part, and the only part where you can live above a bakery. See our downtown guide for what is actually on the street.
What houses cost
Denville is not a cheap market, and the figures you will see vary depending on what is being measured.
- Rocket Homes put the median sale price at $796,503 in May 2026.
- Movoto listed a median list price of $850,000 in August 2026.
- Zillow estimated a median home value of $624,437 and a median rent of $2,400 in July 2026.
Sold price, asking price and estimated value are three different numbers, which is why they disagree. Ask your agent for actual comparable sales in the specific neighborhood, because a lakefront Indian Lake house and a Route 10 corridor split-level are not the same market.
On property taxes, the analytics firm Ownwell estimates a median annual Denville property tax bill of $9,564 and a median effective rate of 2.65 percent, against a Morris County median of 2.60 percent. Treat that as an estimate. For the certified numbers, check the Morris County Board of Taxation or ask for the actual tax bill on the specific property you are considering.
Schools
The Denville Township School District covers prekindergarten through eighth grade across three schools: Lakeview Elementary, Riverview Elementary and Valleyview Middle School. Valleyview handles grades six through eight and enrolls roughly 539 students.
High school works differently, and this is the part that confuses buyers. Denville does not run its own high school. Ninth through twelfth graders attend the Morris Hills Regional District, which operates two high schools serving about 3,000 students from Denville, Rockaway Borough, Wharton and Rockaway Township.
Denville students are zoned to Morris Knolls High School, which is located in Denville. The district’s other school, Morris Hills, is in Rockaway Borough. Assignment is by home address, not by choice, including for families who move within the district.
There is one exception worth knowing about. Morris Hills Regional runs an in-district school choice lottery with four programs: General High School, Aviation, a Math and Science Magnet, and International Baccalaureate. A Denville student can end up at Morris Hills through one of those programs.
The commute
Denville station is a junction where the Morris and Essex Line and the Montclair-Boonton Line meet, with service toward both New York Penn Station and Hoboken. The commuter lots are run by NJ Transit rather than the township, daily parking is $4.00, and quarterly permits are $150.00 at the same rate for residents and non-residents.
The permit deadlines catch people every quarter. We laid out the whole system in our Denville train station guide.
Trash, recycling and town services
The township collects its own garbage and recycling. Curbside service covers every town street except garden apartment complexes.
- Garbage is collected weekly. Recycling is collected every two weeks.
- Denville uses dual-stream recycling. Paper is collected separately from commingled cans, bottles and plastics.
- Bins go out by 7 a.m. Collection starts at 7 a.m. and can run into late afternoon.
- No collection on New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Routes and schedules vary by neighborhood. The township’s Recycle Coach tool on denvillenj.gov tells you your specific pickup days and handles missed-pickup reports. Questions go to 973-625-8334.
Recreation programs, camps and Cook’s Pond memberships are registered through CommunityPass. Denville Recreation is at 973-625-8300.
Saint Clare’s Denville Hospital is at 25 Pocono Road, which is also the headquarters address for Saint Clare’s Health. Services include medical, surgical and critical care, maternity, pediatrics and a Level 2 special care nursery.
The thing nobody tells you: flooding
This is the most important item on the list for a buyer, and the one least likely to come up on a showing.
Denville has a long, documented flooding problem along the Rockaway River, including in the downtown business district. Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011 is the benchmark event, and during it the downtown flooded badly enough that a resident was photographed jet-skiing down Broadway.
It has not stopped. In a more recent storm, Denville Business Administrator Steven Ward called the flooding “probably the worst flooding we’ve experienced since August of 2011 during Hurricane Irene,” and said it was the first time the town had to close a downtown street, Second Avenue, for flooding. Water reached homes along Riverside Drive and the parking lots outside Saint Clare’s.
Thirteen years after Irene, Denville was still waiting on a final federal report that could authorize a roughly $19 million project to raise or floodproof 38 structures in the Rockaway River basin, including six downtown businesses along Righter Avenue.
If you are looking at anything near the river or near Broadway, pull the flood zone, get a flood insurance quote before you go under contract, and ask the seller directly about past water in the basement.
What Denville does well
Open space. The township has preserved more than 1,400 acres, a habit that goes back to the Ayres-Knuth Farm preservation in 1994. Most recently Denville and Morris County announced the preservation of more than 57 acres at the St. Francis and Pocono Field properties, backed by a $5.7 million county grant.
Safety also holds up. Denville landed in the top 10 of SafeWise’s 2026 ranking of New Jersey’s safest cities.
Before you buy
- Confirm whether the property sits in a lake community, and get the association’s dues and rules in writing.
- Pull the flood zone and a flood insurance quote, especially near the Rockaway River or downtown.
- Get the actual tax bill for the address, not a county average.
- Confirm the school assignment by address with the district.
- If the train is the point, check permit availability with the station’s parking operator before you assume you will get one.
Numbers in this guide come from public records and market data providers and move constantly. Verify anything you plan to make a decision on.
Featured photo: the Rockaway River at Tourne County Park by Zeete, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
