Garrison grew up around a boat landing that was a loading point for farmers' produce in the early 18th century. Over time, its magnificent scenery and location just 50 miles north of Manhattan made it popular with successful New Yorkers seeking a quiet weekend hideaway. In recent decades, Garrison's weekend crowd has become a microcosm of the arts and entertainment world. Among those who own property in Garrison are Kevin Kline, the actor; Julie Taymor, the theater director; Matt Williams, the television producer; and Dianne Wiest, the actress. Governor George Pataki makes his home here, as did Hamilton Fish, New York's governor from 1848 to 1851.

 

Nat Prentice, a financial adviser, grew up in Garrison, then moved away for about 30 years before returning in 1999 to buy back the family homestead. The views from the house have not changed much, Mr. Prentice said, but the community has. ''It's not nearly as strait-laced,'' he said. ''When I was a boy, it seemed that it was all lawyers and bankers. You didn't have this whole flowering of creative, home-based businesses.'' Jennifer Timmer, assistant director at the Garrison Arts Center, was similarly surprised when she first moved up from New York. ''What I find so amazing,'' she said, ''is that the people who live here mostly come from the city, and most of them are involved in a creative process of some sort.''

 

The arts center, located in Garrison's tiny commercial center at the old landing, offers a full schedule of classes for adults and children. The annual fine arts and crafts fair (scheduled for next weekend, Aug. 16 and 17) is one of the center's most successful fundraisers, along with ''Artists on Location'' events that send painters into the countryside for the day to create works to be sold in the evening.

 

Housing preferences reflect the residents' aesthetic sensibilities. ''The bread and butter in Garrison is old and charming,'' said Bunny Adams, a sales associate for Houlihan Lawrence in neighboring Cold Spring.

Garrison's rocky, uneven terrain precludes cookie-cutter developments, as does the strong conservation movement. One of the most active preservation groups in the area is the Manhattan-based Open Space Institute, which most recently stepped in to move a 93-acre riverfront property out of developers' reach. The institute bought the property, which was previously owned by the Capuchin Friars, for $7.4 million, then sold the 1929 brick friary, known as Glenclyffe, to the Garrison Institute, a nonprofit retreat center. The remaining land will be preserved as open space.

 

With little new construction and a generally low turnover, Garrison tends to have few available homes. Only about two dozen homes were listed in Garrison late last month. ''You have to sort of wait for someone to die or divorce -- they don't leave otherwise,'' joked Nora Preusser, president of A. D. Preusser Real Estate and herself a lifelong resident of Garrison.

 

Pent-up demand has sent prices soaring over the last decade. Most properties are priced above $425,000 unless they are in the more densely populated Continental Village area, bordering Westchester, or in Graymoor Village, a cluster of small homes near the Franciscan community of the same name. River views raise the price of any property by hundreds of thousands of dollars, Ms. Adams noted.

 

Not surprisingly, given its past, Garrison has plenty of unusual and storied properties. One of the most famous is Osborn Castle, its turrets perched high on a ridge above the Hudson. Built in 1881 by William Henry Osborn, a rail magnate, the castle and its property are still in private hands, but it is no longer occupied.

 

The Federal-style mansion known as Boscobel welcomes visitors who wish to stroll the property's vast lawns and gardens overlooking the Hudson in the gorge far below. The man who conceived Boscobel, States Morris Dyckman, chose to build his dream house in Montrose, 15 miles to the south, but died before it was finished. The house was moved to Garrison and fully restored as a museum in the 1950's. In the summer, Boscobel is host to an outdoor Shakespeare Festival; this month, ''Antony and Cleopatra'' is being presented.

Many Garrison properties are isolated -- rare is the driveway that does not climb steeply up a rocky slope or wind its way through the woods -- but residents nevertheless have many opportunities to get involved in community life. Local organizations generally meet at the Desmond-Fish Library, just up the road from the landing.

 

''Sometimes people will come into the library and say, 'Where's the center of town?' We say, 'You're standing in it,' '' said Carol Donick, the library director. Financed by an endowment from Congressman Hamilton Fish (a descendant of the former governor) and his wife, Alice Desmond, the library offers art shows, children's programs and presentations on subjects as diverse as the healing effects of sound and the lost city of Atlantis.

 

Garrison's K-8 school is another focal point: the school, whose total enrollment is just 258, has 17 different committees run by parents in collaboration with the faculty. Class sizes rarely exceed 15 students and every classroom has at least three computers, said Ellen Bergman, the superintendent. The school even has its own forest for environmental education activities.

 

The original school building, built in 1908, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Middle school students attend classes in a newly built separate wing, but all students share gym and art facilities.

 

Garrison does not have its own high school. Students have a choice of attending one of two nearby schools. The overwhelming majority (90 out of 120 students last year) opt for James O'Neill High School, a 15-minute bus ride away in Highland Falls. The reason, said Dr. Arthur Fisher, the assistant principal, is O'Neill's solid college-preparatory program and extensive extracurricular opportunities.

 

Because the school serves about 200 children of faculty and staff members at the United States Military Academy at West Point, just across the river, O'Neill students also have access to some West Point facilities. ''We are the largest sender of graduates to West Point out of any school in the country,'' Dr. Fisher noted. ''We sent six kids to West Point last year.''

 

The average SAT scores for O'Neill students in 2002, the most recent figures available, were 557 for verbal and 553 for math; the state averages in 2002 were 494 for verbal and 506 for math. Eighty-one percent of the 100 graduates in the class of 2002 went on to college.

 

The other option is Haldane High School in Cold Spring. Ever since Cold Spring was home to the laborers who worked on the local estates, Garrison has tended to shy away from sending its children there, but that is changing, said Andy Irvin, Haldane's new principal. ''We now offer a full range of advanced placement courses, and a wide offering of electives,'' he said. In addition, construction is about to begin on a $13.6 million classroom building with a state-of-the-art science wing.

 

Haldane also has a junior high wing for Grades 7 and 8; total enrollment for all grades is about 450 students. About 90 percent of the 66 graduates in the class of 2003 planned to go on to college. SAT score averages in 2003 were 545 for math and 529 for verbal; 2003 state averages have not yet been released.

 

Cold Spring is as far as Garrison residents have to travel for an elegant dinner, a bottle of wine or groceries. Recreational options are available in Garrison itself. It has two golf courses: a nine-hole course at the semiprivate Highland Country Club and an 18-hole public course at the Garrison Golf Club. Canoeists can lose themselves for hours exploring the 270-acre Constitution Marsh Sanctuary.

 

For those who love to hike, Garrison is a great place, said Tildy La Farge, communications director for the Open Space Institute. ''There is a gorgeous trail leading to the Appalachian Trail and Glenclyffe right at the Garrison train station,'' she said.