#Estate July 14
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Growing up in Northern NJ I really did not appreciate the number of ESTATES that dotted the landscape when I was a small child in Morris and Somerset Counties.
In Madison NJ you had the Dodge Estate that was purchased in 1916 by Marcellus Hartley Dodge, President of the Remington Arms Company and his wife Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge. Today the Dodge Estate is known as Giralda Farms.
Geraldine Rockefeller was the daughter and youngest child of Almira Geraldine Goodsell and William Avery Rockefeller, Jr.,. Her father helped create Standard Oil with his brother John D. Rockefeller, Sr. and four other partners.
My family roots are tied to Far Hills NJ on my mom’s side of the family. It was a place that was home to a number of people of wealth, it just wasn’t my mom’s people. In the 1940’s the population of Far Hills was under 600 people according to the US Census.
There are 3 ESTATES in Far Hills I want to mention.
There was the Forbes Estate called Timberfield located in Far Hills NJ. It was an 18 room house located on 34 acres owned at one time by Malcolm Forbes.
In Far Hills NJ there was a couple named Kate Macy Ladd and her husband Walter Ladd that lived right down Peapack Road from my aunt and grandmother. The picture below is of my late aunt Dorothy Lynch D”Epagnier home on Peapack Rd. It was nothing like the Ladd’s.
The Ladd’s had a massive estate called Natirar which was 1,000 acres and featured a 33,000 square foot home.
Another ESTATE in the Far Hill NJ area is now the home to The USGA Golf Museum. That ESTATE was called both Dogwood and Pastureland and was owned by a variety of people including John Sloane of the W. and J. Sloane furniture family. I got to spend many days in the 1960’s roaming the grounds since my aunt and uncle were employed by adjacent land owners.
The Sloane family owned the estate from 1926-1955. He had three daughters who all married successful business and political leaders Grace Elsie Sloane Vance-husband former Sec. of State Cyrus Vance and mom to NYC District Attorney Cy Vance Jr., Nancy Sloane Coates -husband Benjamin Coates and Evelyn Sloan Pyne husband Percy R. Pyne IV.
All this thinking about ESTATES was prompted by Tony Jenkins posting pictures of the Biltmore ESTATE in Asheville NC
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