No takers yet for New Jersey’s most expensive home

BLOOMBERG

In this age of tiny houses and the less-is-more aesthetic of millennials, can a house be too large for its market—even when that market sports a median home price around the $5 million mark? That has to be a question that occurs when viewing this massive 30,000-square-foot home listed for $48,880,000 in tony Alpine, NJ.
New Jersey’s most expensive home is only 30 minutes from Manhattan, and the property has been on and off the market since being built in 2010 by real estate mogul Richard Kurtz.
Currently, Alpine’s median listing price is $4,995,000, and an estate just down the road from this mansion is listed for $27.8 million.
Kurtz originally had the home built for him and his wife, but they decided it was too much house after construction was done. He put it on the market in 2010. The home has apparently never been lived in, although one report noted Kurtz has been paying roughly $300,000 a year in property tax since it was built. Listing agent Sharon Kurtz with Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty–Alpine didn’t return a request for comment on the mansion.
The listing price for the home, known as the Stone Mansion, has fallen from $68 million in 2010 to $56 million in 2013 to $49 million later that year to today’s price of $48.88 million.
The manse features 12 bedrooms, 15 full bathrooms, and four half-baths. And, of course, there is every imaginable amenity, including an indoor basketball court, a 4,000-bottle wine cellar, gold fixtures in the bathrooms, and a master suite that is larger than most New York City apartments just across the Hudson.
Interior designer Terence Mack, who worked on the Georgian-style home for Kurtz when it was being built, noted that “this is a spec house unlike any other one you’ll ever see. A spec house by definition has to be neutral, but here we had to have luxe finishes.” Among those luxe finishes are marble flooring imported from India, hand-troweled Venetian plaster on various wall panels, antique French sconces, and powder rooms with onyx counters and walls covered in imported Italian silk.
The formal dining room, trimmed in 24-carat gold, has flecks of silver mica powder added to the plaster to allow the room to shimmer in the evening light, Mack said.
The mansion is built on the site of the former Frick estate, which harkens to the Gilded Age of late 19th-century America with its megamansions. This home would have fit right in, albeit with its more modern amenities.