Opulence has its place.
That place, in late 19th-century America, was about an hour west of New York City. Industrialists and financiers with sudden mind-boggling wealth were seduced by deeply wooded hills and large tracts of open land in a sweet New Jersey enclave. Welcome to the Gilded Age, country style.
Fresh off the railway line nicknamed the Millionaire’s Express, scions of Manhattan society flocked to Bernardsville, a borough in the Somerset Hills where they could breathe mountain air and exercise their wealth by commissioning a haven or two to sit upon America’s landscape.
Their architect would be George Browne Post (1837-1913). With landmarks such as the New York Times Building and the New York Stock Exchange behind him, Post urged his urban clients to decamp to the country and luxuriate in new palatial residences, unironically referred to as “summer cottages”.
Bernardsville, New Jersey became the ideal location for some of Post’s most grandiloquent statements, including a massive Italiante castello-cum-castello called Stronghold built for a socialite-cum-lawyer who married an Astor. He nicknamed it Crow’s Foot. The marriage didn’t last, neither did the name.
The Gilded Age ended as the 19th century closed its eyes, and the world got jolted into the brutal events of the century ahead. But that’s not where this story ends.
A hundred years later, many of Bernardsville’s grand homes still stand. And, in 2003, the age-old formula of wealth plus ambition—with more than a dash of fond nostalgia for more genteel times—saw the empathetic creation of a singular residential estate that reinstated the intense beauty and gentle excesses of the Gilded Age.
Falcon Crest rivals any of its predecessors. Less than an hour from New York City and built on Bernardsville Mountain, the 32-acre property exudes a quiet elegance and stately style. It recently came on the market through Turpin Realtors, which specializes in luxury properties in north-central New Jersey.
“This house has earned itself a seat at that table as one of the great estates of the area, even though it was built in modern times,” says John Turpin.
Its commanding presence seems to rise out of nowhere within an expansive surrounding forest of mature trees. Within this enveloping privacy, the six-bedroom Georgian-influenced main house pays homage to the Gilded Age, not just by its looks but also in its construction.
The hand-milled moldings, 10-foot ceilings, stone fireplaces, grand staircases and craftsmanship throughout this house may have turned the head even of the Astors. Decor and furnishings, such as an elaborately carved wooden billiard table topped with bright red felt, spell the spirit of past times.
Falcon Crest covers 25,000 square feet. (A separate four-bedroom cottage accommodates staff or guests.) Within which, some surprises delight. A vaulted wine cellar in the basement holds more than 16,000 bottles for the adjoining tasting room, a nice touch of Vanderbilt proportions. A towering two-story library made of Eastern white pine topped by a softly lit dome took teams of specialist workers nine weeks to build.
Turpin likens the grandeur of this property to Blairsden, a 500-acre estate in nearby Peapack-Gladstone built for New York banker Clinton Ledyard Blair as the centuries turned, when Bernardsville benefited from the millionaire’s gaze. Falcon Crest is a worthy, quieter neighbor.
The borough endures as an ultra-wealthy bedroom community to New York City. It remains small, around 8,000 residents, divided between the “mountain” where the old mansions preside and the “village” where newcomers come to work and prosper. A train still whisks passengers to the city, though no one calls it the Millionaire’s Express anymore.
The Bernardsville of the Gilded Age was a place to escape the city, a place to entertain like Gatsby, a place to voice architectural proclamations. One hundred years later, Falcon Crest estate sits calmly—shall we say no less sumptuously but discreetly and refined—as a place to breathe in the quietude of bountiful country air.
Susan Miller and Molly Tonero are the listing agents for Falcon Crest. Turpin Realtors is a member of Forbes Global Properties, an invitation-only network of top-tier brokerages worldwide and the exclusive real estate partner of Forbes.
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