- The mansions' owners range from state governors to African kings.
- Public tours or open houses are typically available at least once per month.
New Jersey has noshortage of stately manors, but few let the public trample through.
Owned by the state, education centers and nonprofits, the ones that dooften come steeped in history.From summer retreatsto governor’s mansions, these manors tell the story of thepolitical and industrial forces that shapedtheir creation and renovation.
The official residence of the governor of New Jersey, Drumthwacket has a large central portico with six frontal columns, reminiscent of the White House.
The Greek revival home with the silly-sounding name was built by Charles Smith Olden in 1835 and housed its first governor when Olden himself took office in 1860. Officially, Drumthwacket has been the official governor's residence only since the 1980s, though it has been owned by the state since 1966.
Drumthwacket was owned and upgraded around the turn of the 20th century by industrialist and banker Moses Taylor Pyne, a Princeton University graduate and trustee. The upgrade included the construction of the Italianate gardens. Now restored, the terraced landscape draws many to the grounds today.
Go: The home itself is open most Wednesdays from September through July for guided tours;354 Stockton St., Princeton;drumthwacket.org/visit.
The headquarters of the Passaic County Historical Society, Lambert Castle is open for midday tours from Wednesdays to Sundays from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
The stone-clad, Victorian-era castle was built in 1892 on 53 acres by Catholina Lambert. The onetime president of the Silk Association of America, Lambert built and owned Paterson’s Dexter Mill, and his wealth grew off the mill’s government contracts.
Lambert was also an art lover. He expanded the mansion in 1896by adding a 150-foot-long art gallery that he opened to the public on Saturdays starting in 1900. (The gallery is no longer there.)
Lambert’s son sold the site to the city of Paterson in 1925,two years after his father's death. The city restored the four-story structure in 2000. Another restoration project is in the works, as the building has some water damage to interior plaster and exterior sandstone.
Go: The castle hosts a holiday boutiquefrom early November through early December. This year is the 31st annual boutique, which runs throughDec. 2 (Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.);3 Valley Road,Paterson;lambertcastleweb.wordpress.com.
Set in Ringwood State Park is Ringwood Manor, a grand summer estate once owned by the Cooper-Hewitt family. Now owned by the state of New Jersey, the lavishly decorated home provides visitors with the chance to set foot inside a 100-year-old time capsule.
The manor started life in 1807 as a 10-room, Federal-style home to serve the owner of the local ironworks. Todayit stands as a 51-room Victorian mansion thanks to Sarah Amelia Cooper Hewitt. She led renovations in 1864, 1875, 1900 and 1910 and placed deed restrictions on the property to ensure its preservation.
Hewitt'sson Erksine Hewitt, who served as a captain in the Spanish-American War before developing much of modern Ringwood,donated the site to the state in 1938.
Go: The home is generally open for guided tours Wednesday through Sunday, every hour from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It is closed most of November to prepare for the December “Victorian Christmas” events;ringwoodmanor.org.
TEMPORARY CLOSURES:Ringwood's historic state-owned manors closed ahead of holiday events
Built over the course of 12 years starting in 1760, Liberty Hall was to be the retirement home for attorney William Livingston. The first Continental Congress in 1774 and ensuing Revolution-era events, including his election as New Jersey’s first governor in 1776,ended those plans.
Constructed as a 14-room, Georgian-style home, Liberty Hall was later transformed into a 50-room Victorian-style mansion and now museum by subsequent generations of the politically connectedKean family. The Keans first arrived in 1811 and by the late 1970s had converted the property into a museum.
Today, the exterior of the museum at Kean University stands out, withpale yellow paint andblack shutters above first-floor white detailing. In thepast, presidents Ulysses S. Grant, William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover walked its halls.
Go: Tours and museum hours typically run from Tuesday through Saturday each week from April to December starting at 10 a.m.;1003 Morris Ave.,
Union;kean.edu/libertyhall.
Built by the son of a railroad tycoon in 1896 to house theatrical productions, polo horses and masquerade balls, Gould Mansion served as the summer retreat for George Jay Gould and family.
The 200-acre estate now serves the academic crowd as part of Georgian Court University in Lakewood. Four gardens, including Japanese and Italian gardens, adorn the site.
The estate, known as Georgian Court under the ownership of the Goulds, also features a rare court tennis facility. Restored roughly a dozen years ago, the facility helped Gould’s son, Jay, become the game’s world and Olympic champion in the early 1900s.
After Gould’s death in 1923, the home was sold to the Sisters of Mercy as the next home of the College of Mount St. Mary. Georgian Court College, as it was renamed to appease its former owner's estate, opened in 1924.
Go: Tours are available today by appointment;517 Ninth St., Lakewood; georgian.edu/venue/georgian-court-university-mansion.
A villa-style home constructed by glass-making magnate Thomas Whitney in 1849, Hollybush was made more famous by its visitors than its owners.
The home has been a center of education in Glassboro since 1923, when the Glassboro Normal School opened to train teachers on a then-subdivided Whitney estate. The manor served as dorms for students. Later, it was reserved for school presidents.
For one day in 1967, the image of Hollybush was plastered on newspapers worldwide as President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin met in its library for Cold War talks.
Now part of the campus known as Rowan University, the Italian-style manor underwent a $3 million renovation starting in 2003. Hollybush is used today as a meeting venue and reception area for school and community functions.
Go:Tours available by appointment; 501 Whitney Ave.,Glassboro;sites.rowan.edu/hollybush.
Set amid theNew Jersey Botanical Garden, Skylands Manor is a Tudor-style mansion built by Jersey City engineer and inventor turned investment banker Clarence McKenzie Lewis.
The lavish home features a marble-lined breakfast room, a Venetian wash basin and a five-sided study covered in oak panels carved with a mythical animal motif from the German Renaissance. Stained glass, marble and woodwork assembled from historic estates in England and New England adorn the structure.
The home was designed by John Russell Pope, famous for the National Gallery of Art and the Jefferson Memorial. The builder, Elliot C. Brown, counted Franklin D. Roosevelt among his clients. Each room has a garden view.
Lewiswas aNew York Botanical Garden trustee. He soldthe property in 1953but once had 60 full-time gardeners tending the grounds.
The state bought 1,117 acres of the property from Shelton College in 1966, marking itsinauguralGreen Acres purchase. In 1984, Gov. Thomas Kean designated the 96 acres surrounding the manor house New Jersey’sbotanical garden.
Go: 45-minute tours of the house are available at 1 p.m. on selected Sundays; 2 Morris Road, Ringwood;njbg.org/skylandsmanor.shtml.
Completed in 1912 on 1,000 acres, Natirar is a slate-roofed, limestone-trimmed, 33,000-square-foot Tudor mansion. Its name is the reverse of the nearby river: the Raritan.
Whaling heiress Kate Macy Ladd and her husband, Walter Ladd, built the manor. Rather than throw parties in it, as was the wont of many of their Gilded Age contemporaries, the couple opened a nearby convalescence center for ill women. After Walter Ladd’s 1933 death, the center moved into the mansion, where it stayed for 50 years.
Natirar and its 500-acre surroundings were then sold to the king of Morocco for use by family while his sons attended Princeton University. The king, Hassan II, owned Natirar from 1983 to 2003, when Somerset County bought it and 90 surrounding acres for $22 million.
Today, it operates as a cooking school, corporate retreat and wedding venue under a public-private partnership designed to fund restoration work. Residential units, hotel suites and a spa are all in development for club members, who are invited to join by invitation only.
Go: Membership in Natirar is by invitation only, but it can be booked for events; 2 Main St., Peapack-Gladstone;natirar.com.
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