Aerial photograph of Natirar site, photography courtesy of Eric Mower + Associates. The Meanys based their 1904 home on the design of Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. From 1961 to 1984 the structure served as Saint Mark’s Lutheran Church. Until recently it was an office building known as The Abbey. With leaded and stained glass windows galore, the Abbey returned to prominence as host of this year’s Mansions in May fundraiser for the Women’s Association of Morristown Medical Center. Alnwick Hall was completely restored to its former grandeur by many area designers for the event, beautifying 41 rooms and many gardens. The ballroom alone, where the Meanys were said to entertain lavishly, could accommodate 200 people. Now that Mansions in May is over, the future of this landmark is in jeopardy. Plans for a townhouse complex are pending zoning commission review. A “Save the Abbey” campaign has been created to prevent it from being demolished. Among the other Mansions of Somerset Hills is Stronghold, in Bernardsville. Stronghold was designed by George B. Post, architect of the New York Stock Exchange, who purchased 104 acres on Bernardsville Mountain in 1871 with visions of replicating the rolling estates of English lords. Banker James Coleman Drayton bought a portion from Post, and hired him to build a stone villa featuring a four-story tower. The next owner added a classical semicircular terrace (the “Solarium”) with Corinthian columns and a staircase flanked by rhino statues. In 1940 it was turned into a girls’ boarding school, but by 1995 it had once again become a private residence. Built in 1886, the stone mansion was restored and renovated to blend its traditional grandeur with a modern spirit by fashion designer Marc Ecko, who bought it for $5 million in 2005 and pumped $23 million into it. Stronghold was listed for sale beginning in 2012 for $27 million— the New York Post headlined its story “Estate of Ecko a $$Wrecko.” Still on the market, Stronghold’s value is estimated by Zillow at $4 million. Natirar was created by Walter Graeme Ladd and his wife, Catherine Everit Macy Ladd, choosing the name based on the backward spelling of Raritan, the river that flows through the property. The estate includes 22 buildings, six wells, three bridges, three streams, a pond, woodlands, and the 33,000-square-foot mansion designed by Guy Lowell and Henry Hardenbergh, architects of New York’s Plaza and Waldorf hotels, the
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Dakota, Manhattan Courthouse, buildings on the Harvard University campus, and the Boston Museum of Fine Art. Catherine was an heiress to a whaling, oil, and shipping fortune; her father’s business partner was John D. Rockefeller. Ladd was an entrepreneur and attorney to Rockefeller. They married in 1883 and rented property in Bernardsville as they acquired small local farmsteads until their estate spread over 1,000 acres throughout Peapack-Gladstone, Far Hills, and Bedminster. Morocco’s King Hassan II bought the property from the Ladd Estate in 1983 but never permanently lived there. Somerset County bought Natirar in 2003 for $22 million and turned it into a park. The property features extensive areas of lawn and woodland, river access, and scenic views and contains historic farm buildings and various other residential structures and outbuildings dating from the mid-18th through mid-19th centuries. The Mansions of Somerset Hills were built for another era. Do they have a place in the world today? “Some were torn down after World War II because they were too hard to maintain,” says Thomson. In addition to maintenance—they required an enormous staff of groundskeepers, housekeepers, stable groomsmen, and others—taxes were astronomical. If the house wasn’t razed in its entirety, wings might have been torn off. “Some of the buildings became schools or church-related,” says Thomson. “Stronghold became a private girls’ school but is now back in private ownership, just as with Blairsden. It’s interesting to see how they come full circle. And what is today the USGA Golf Museum in Bernards Township was built in 1919 for Thomas Frothingham as the Dogwood Estate.” But living like a tycoon, surrounded by grandeur, never could assure happiness. According to the Historical Society website, after a failed suicide attempt, a divorce from his wife, and moving to Mexico to avoid bankruptcy prosecution, Frothingham died in Mexico. Thomson remains firmly committed to preservation. “These buildings reflect an important era of architectural, landscape, and cultural history, and reflect a different way of life,” he says. “They were built and designed by the most noted architects and landscape architects of the day. The architecture is culturally important to the history of the early 20th century. And environmentally it’s good that they remain intact and preserve open space.”
FALL 2017