Fascinating Article on NJ.com about our Stunning Listing in Chester, 1901 Rt 206, Chester, NJ, asking $5,800,000, and it’s incredible history! One of New Jersey’s Finest Homes!
And check a snippet from the article below. What an interesting read, the history of this spectacular estate is unparalleled!
“A 50-acre estate in Chester Township developed by 20th-century media mogul Henry R. Luce was listed last month for $5.8 million.
The estate, financed nearly 90 years ago by Luce, the founder of Time, Life, Fortune and Sports Illustrated magazines, is centered on a 13,820-square-foot stone mansion. Complete with a towering turret, the home is a great mix of old and new, said agent Arlene Gonnella of Weichert Realtors.
Though built in the mid-1930s, the historic home was updated at the turn of the century to include modern amenities. Its exterior is akin to a French chateau. Its interior is defined by oversized rooms, vaulted and beamed ceilings and arched French doors.
It’s the kind of place you have to see in person to fully appreciate,” Gonella said. “It’s beyond breathtaking.”
Located at 1901 Route 206, the 10-bedroom, nine-bathroom home sits several hundred feet from a wall of trees bordering the highway. As with many North Jersey estates, the surrounding property has been subdivided from the original estate for more luxury homes. However, it is far from a crowded neighborhood. The remaining property still covers nearly 50 acres. All but 3 of those acres are farmland-assessed for property tax purposes, county records show.
Luce bought the property in June 1933, a few weeks after arriving in the area to summer with his wife of 10 years, born Lila Ross Hotz, newspaper reports said. The two, who married the same year Luce launched the groundbreaking news magazine Time with Yale classmate Briton Hadden, spent that summer nearby. They rented the home of future New Jersey Racing Commission member William V. Griffin on Holland Road in Far Hills, just south of their new 420-acre spread, The Bernardsville News reported in June 1933.
Named “Lu Shan,” the Chinese words for “road” and “mountain,” the estate was shaped for China-born Luce and his wife by the Manhattan architectural firm of Adams & Prentice. Led by one of Luce’s Yale classmates, Lewis Greenleaf Adams, the firm also designed Richard B. Byrd School in Glen Rock, the much larger William R. Cotter Federal Building in downtown Hartford, Connecticut, and House 21 in the 1939 New York World’s Fair’s “Town of Tomorrow.””
