If you’re unable to attend the “The Natirar Estate and Kate Macy Ladd Convalescent Home” exhibit at the Brick Academy in Basking Ridge, you can still view the digital version. The physical exhibit premiered November 14 and can be viewed during our monthly open house—the next is Sunday December 1st from 2pm to 4pm. The digital version is available now by clicking HERE.
The Natirar Digital Exhibit is part of the THSSH Online Collections, which launched this fall. The digital exhibit contains catalog records for the objects in the physical exhibit plus items which were not included due to space limitations. In all, the digital exhibit features 60 documents, photos, and objects associated with Natirar, the Ladds, or the Kate Macy Ladd Convalescent Home in Peapack-Gladstone, NJ.
The digital exhibit is also indexed so keywords and names are searchable. To search within the Natirar collection, go to Advanced Search, input “Natirar” in the Collection field, and your search term(s) in the Keyword/Name Field. Go to Advanced Search.
Nicely done – thanks for making this digital! I hope to see the exhibit in person as well. Query: we walk there often and are curious about the small brick building and round cement area (topped with picnic tables) adjacent to the walking trail above the barns, retaining pond & parking lot. I have looked at the materials in the digital exhibition and the folder at the library but I don’t see any mention of them. Anyone know what they were used for? I can’t zoom in close enough on the 1947 map (even with the zoom tool) to see if they are shown there. And were the Maple cottage and the former houses on the property near the main road or atop the hill near the site of the Ladd Mansion? Thanks!
P.S. I don’t know if it would be possible but it would be great to have a guided tour of the property and/or a copy of the map showing the location of the original sites posted on the Park Service bulletin board (or available in a handout) so curious hikers could understand the land better – maybe with credit to the Historical Society so people would know of your existence?
The 1947 Survey does show a circular reservoir and pump house to the northwest of the barns. This may be what you are seeing. Maple Cottage, which was torn down, stood along the Far Hills-Peapack Road. The old Belcher farmhouse, where the Ladds lived while the Natirar mansion was being built, was on the top of the hill to the west of where the mansion now stands. The Belcher farmhouse was torn down after Natirar was completed in 1912. Hope to see you at the exhibit!