Additional Points of Interest
Here are a few more sites of historical interest to consider.
(These are not listed on the national or state registers of historic places)
Peapack-Gladstone
Blairsden is a Beaux-Arts mansion completed in 1903 for C. Ledyard Blair, a wealthy New York investment banker. Set atop a mountain in Peapack-Gladstone and overlooking Ravine Lake, Blairsden is privately owned, but open from time to time for special events.
See Blairsden and the Blair Family for a full history of the family and estate.
Liberty Corner
Situated in the picturesque and historic village of Liberty Corner, the working farm has been in the same family since before the Revolutionary War.
Back in the late Summer of 1781, this farm site is where over 4,000 troops, 1,500 horses, and a heard of over 600 oxen congregated at what was then known as Bullions Tavern (Liberty Corner / Bernards Twp) . The site recently comm orated the the 225th anniversary of the march of French and continental forces through New Jersey to their victory over the British at the Battle of Yorktown. A reenactment on the English Farm, the actual location of the French campsite, was recently performed recreating August 29, 1781.
From Kate Macy Ladd Brochure
Natirar County Park
Somerset County opened the 411-acre Natirar park in 2006. The property includes 189 acres of forest, 230 acres of former agricultural land, and 44 acres of wetlands. There are 247 acres located in Peapack and Gladstone, 124 acres in Far Hills, and 40 acres in Bedminster Township.
Natirar contains several historic farm buildings dating from the mid-18th through mid-19th centuries. Several miles of hiking trails provide visitors with views of the north branch of the Raritan River and Peapack Brook. The park has also hosted many high school cross-country meets.
Natirar
Natirar (Raritan spelled backwards) is the estate created by Walter Graeme Ladd, a merchant and insurance executive, and his wife, Kate Macy Ladd, an heiress and an invalid for much of her life. The Ladds began acquiring land, including Zachariah Belcher’s Sunnybranch Farm, in 1905. Ultimately, the estate grew to around 1,000 acres spanning Bedminster, Pepack and Gladstone, and Far Hills. The Ladds lived in the Belcher farmhouse before hiring architects Guy Lowell and Henry Hardenberg to design a new 33,000-sq. ft. Tudor-style mansion which was completed in 1912.
Kate Macy Ladd was well known as a philanthropist and healthcare activist. Beginning in 1907, she established a convalescence center for working women called Maple Cottage in one of the farmhouses on the estate.
Walter Ladd died in 1933, and his widow Kate Macy Ladd continued to live at Natirar until her death in 1945. By the terms of Walter’s will, the Kate Macy Ladd Foundation was set up to continue Kate’s work. In 1949, the convalescent home was moved to the main mansion where it operated until 1983. See brochure.
Moroccan King Hassan II bought the property from the Ladd Estate in 1983, and Somerset County bought Natirar from Hassan II’s son, King Mohammed VI in 2003 for $22 million.
The open space, containing 411 acres, opened to the public as a county park in the Fall of 2006.
The county leased 90 acres including the mansion to investor Robert Wojtowicz and partner Sir Richard Branson. The Borough of Peapack and Gladstone approved plans for a spa at Natirar in 2005, and the Ninety Acres restaurant opened in 2009. A new partner, Miraval, owned by AOL founder Scott Case, came on board in 2013, but economic conditions delayed development. In 2017, the mansion’s Great Room and Ballroom reopened for receptions and weddings. In 2018, Wojtowicz partnered with Pendry Hotels to create 24 farm residences at Natirar. The Pendry Natirar Spa opened in Fall 2024.
Bernards Township
The USGA Golf Museum sits in the heart of a 60-acre estate.
The USGA’s facility not only documents the game’s rich history, but it is home to the most sophisticated and technically advanced golf equipment test facility in the country.
Estate History:
Constructed in 1919, built for Thomas Frothingham. In 1926 – Thomas Frothinghams Dogwood estate (now USGA Golf House Museum) was sold to John Sloan, a prominent furniture retailer, due to bankruptcy as partner of investment company Potter Brothers & Company. After a failed suicide attempt, a divorce from his wife, and moving to Mexico to avoid bankruptcy prosecution, Frothingham died in Mexico.
Bedminster
The Hamilton Farm estate is home to the United States Equestrian Team Foundation.
Besides being the training site for horses and riders that participate in Olympic events, it is also the venue for the annual U.S. Equestrian Team Festival of Champions, a four-day extravaganza of horsemanship, including driving, show jumping and dressage, normally held annually in the third week of June.
Peapack
The Essex Hunt Club is a fox-hunting club that evolved into two private clubs, Essex Fox Hounds, which still hunts, and the Essex Hunt Club, a winter recreational club on a property of more than 100 acres that uses an ice rink for figure skating and hockey. Masters of Foxhounds Association of North America is the sanctioning body in the US for what the organization entitled the Essex Fox Hounds, that was spun from the original Essex Hunt Club.
Photo by Michael V. Gutwillig
Cross Gardens Map
W. Raymond Cross Estate & Gardens
Bernardsville
Site of the New Jersey Brigade Unit of Morristown National Historical Park, on Old Jockey Hollow Road in Bernardsville, NJ.
The original house, built by John A. Bensel in 1905, formed the centerpiece of his “Queen Anne Farm.” The estate included a carriage house, a five-story stone water tower, and a gate house.
In 1929, W. Redmond Cross purchased the property and renamed it “Hardscrabble House”. His wife, Julia Newbold Cross, was a member of the Royal Horticultural Society for eight years. Mrs. Cross made extensive improvements in the garden with the help of Clarence Fowler, a noted landscape architect. Together they cultivated an unusual assortment of plants throughout the garden. The house was extensively remodeled in 1940, after the death of Mr. Cross.
For Directions- Click Here
The Cross Estate Gardens are a project of the New Jersey Historical Garden Foundation, in cooperation with the National Park Service.
Somerset County
Somerset County Cultural & Heritage Commission
A book entitled Historic Sites & Districts in Somerset County, NJ is available for additional research.
