News:
Reconstructed Estate Map of Somerset Hills to be unveiled

Estates of the Somerset Hill Mountain Colony Revealed between 1898 thru 1939

Landscape architect John Charles Smith of Peapack-Gladstone displays a map he designed depicting the great estates of the Somerset Hills from 1898 to 1939. Residents can view the map from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 3, at the historic Jacobus-Vanderveer House on Route 202-206 in Bedminster Township.

Smith is a fan of local history and chairs the Peapack Gladstone Historic Preservation Commission. Houses were built as a demonstration of one’s wealth and creativity.”John is also a board member of the Friends of the Jacobus Vanderveer House.

“I draw all day and I love it,” he said. “As a landscape architect, it’s in my blood.” Smith was inspired to begin the project around 1997 after his cousin, Barry Thomson, collaborated with Far Hills Realtor Jack Turpin on two books about Somerset Hills estates. He started looking at old maps, aerial photos and engineering plans kept by firms like Apgar Associates of Far Hills, and then overlaid them against modern tax maps. He sought additional information from current estate owners.

The map took over 10 years to build. “I had to put it together piece by piece,” he said. “It was like a jigsaw puzzle – take one at a time and lay them out together.” Smith found that by 1920 or so, the estates occupied virtually 100 percent of the land on the Bernardsville Mountain.

Most of the land at the time consisted of small farms, he noted. He said land typically sold for only $2 an acre, so the wealthy newcomers had enough means to convince the farmers to sell.

The largest home was the 50,000-square-foot mansion that Blair built at “Blairsden” between 1898 and 1901, Smith said. Still standing atop a wooded hill, it had spectacular views of a 550-acre estate that featured its own terraces, stairways, fountains, statues and a man-made lake.

Smith plans to offer copies of the maps for sale, with a price probably between $100 and $200 without a frame, he said.

Read the story that was posted in the Bernardsville News - Click Here

Requests for an R.S.V.P. can be made at (908) 234-1121.

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Submitted: April 16, 2009