American Masterpiece: The Stone Mansion

It comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that Alpine, New Jersey—a town that regularly ranks among the wealthiest in America and is home to countless CEOs, celebrities and pro athletes—boasts some of the most jaw-dropping properties in the Northeast. But even in a town where the average home lists for over $3 million, there is one property that dwarfs the rest in terms of ambition, design and scale: the Stone Mansion.

Located at One Frick Drive and just eight miles outside of Manhattan, the Stone Mansion is currently listed for just under $33 million, making it the most expensive home on the market in New Jersey. If you’re experiencing that tingly, déjà vu feeling right now and wondering if you’ve seen this property before, you probably have.

The Stone Mansion was originally put on the market in 2010, shortly after the property was acquired by Richard Kurtz, CEO of the Englewood Cliffs-based developer the Kamson Corporation. The property, initially listed for a whopping $68 million, quickly became one of the most expensive houses on the market at the time and caught the eye of Forbes Magazine.

A series of print and video profiles followed, propelling the property to some local and regional fame. The profiles often followed Kurtz, who purchased the property in 2006 from the grandson of steel industrialist, Henry Clay Frick. These profiles can still be found online, some of them under the estate’s former address: 18 Frick Drive.

After Kurtz purchased the 60-acre estate, he promptly subdivided it into multiple lots for luxury housing, including a separate property that was purchased and then sold by New Jersey Devils star Ilya Kovalchuk. The Stone Mansion was not sold during the original listing, nor in the various attempts to sell it in the 10 years since.

By 2012, the property’s asking price was down to $56 million and Oren Alexander, co-founder of the Alexander Group at Prudential Douglas Elliman, was brought on to market the estate. A series of price cuts ultimately landed the property at an asking price of $39 million in 2017, before it was taken off the market altogether.

Now, with the help of Dennis and Dolores McCormack of Sotheby’s International Realty, the Stone Mansion is back on the market, 10 years older but still untouched. The task for the McCormack’s is a tall one. The sheer size of the property and the appropriately-high asking price makes the list of potential buyers for One Frick Drive pretty small—which is undoubtedly why it has languished on the market for as long as it has.

This 33,000-square-foot living space is comprised of 12 bedrooms, 15 full bathrooms, four partial bathrooms and various 450-square-foot closets. Each room is adorned with rare woods, stones and marble, as well as sky-high 12-foot ceilings with ornate light fixtures.   

The highlights of the estate are the rooms designed with entertaining in mind. Grand reception areas, formal living and dining rooms, a ballroom, a martini parlor, a 4,000-bottle wine cellar, a movie theater, multiple libraries and two art galleries make for an adult playground for you and 1,000 of your closest friends.

A five-car garage, heated driveways and ample space to park outdoors makes valeting easy. In terms of recreation, the mansion at One Frick Drive provides an indoor basketball court, an outdoor tennis court, a 65-foot saltwater pool and a pool house fitted with a bathroom and kitchen. Basically, you’d be hard-pressed to find an amenity missing here.

The stone masonry covering the exterior of the estate is what earned the property its nickname. The sheer magnitude of the blueish-grey stones gives the 6-acre property an other-worldly feel. Sprawling lawns with marble trimmings surrounded by enormous, 300-year-old trees evoke royalty of-old.

Located on one of the only guarded streets in Alpine, the Stone Mansion offers luxury, privacy and proximity to the city. And in a funny twist of events, the massive house at One Frick Drive has actually become kind of a good deal after years of price cuts.

Whether or not the McCormacks will be the ones to finally land a buyer for this American masterpiece is yet to be seen. If they don’t, perhaps Kurtz could consider selling to the Borough of Alpine. The Stone Mansion, with its ample space and amenities, may do nicely as Alpine’s first-ever public high school.