Stone Mansion on Frick Estate in Alpine finally sells for $27.5M after decade on market

One of the most expensive homes in New Jersey has finally sold after years on the market. The 30,000-square-foot Stone Mansion, located on the famous Frick Estate in Alpine, was purchased for $27.5 million.

The mansion was completed in 2013 after the previous owner Richard Kurtz purchased part of the 60-acre Frick Estate, which is divided between Alpine and Demarest, for $58 million in 2006. Real estate agent Dennis McCormack of Prominent Properties Sotheby's International Realty, the sale's listing agent, was unable to disclose the name of the buyer but said it was a family who plans on making it their home.

"The buyer got an excellent deal," McCormack said.

Story continues below gallery

The mansion has 11 bedrooms, gilded chandeliers, a saltwater pool and a tennis court. No one has ever actually lived in the house, which Kurtz initially had built for his family. Kurtz owns another house in Alpine as well as one in Palm Beach, Florida, McCormack said.

The house was originally put on the market in 2010, for $68 million. Since then it has been on and off the market, and was most recently put back on in 2019 for $36 million, which was lowered to $32.8 million in 2020.

McCormack said Kurtz was happy to have found a buyer, who purchased the property in cash.

Sold: Grammy-winning rapper Cardi B purchased $5.85M mansion in Tenafly, reports say

For years Kurtz struggled to find a buyer, and had previously said the reason was due to the high taxes he had to pay on the property.

The borough of Alpine "has overtaxed us excessively, and it's been hard to sell the house with an enormous tax on it. It's double than it should be, and the township refuses to do anything about it," Kurtz told The Record in 2020. "And it hurts when selling it, because people don't want a $300,000 tax."

The house is located on the only gate-guarded street in Alpine and has a sewer connection, whereas most of the borough uses a septic tank, McCormack said. Public records show that the property, both the house and the land, is assessed at $35.5 million, and the tax bill is assessed at $275,835.

"The site of this house is the highest elevation on Frick Drive so you have panoramic western views from portions of the house," McCormack said. "You see the valley and the sunsets are beautiful there."

Previous coverage: A $33 million mega-mansion has gone unsold for a decade. The builder says he knows why.

McCormack was involved with the property when Kurtz bought the estate, which was once owned by the family of steel industrialist Henry Clay Frick. Kurtz has since sold parts of the estate into subdivisions, McCormack said. The property also contains a mansion owned by former New Jersey Devils star Ilya Kovalchuk, which is currently on the market for $14 million.

Staff writer Ricardo Kaulessar contributed to this story.

Liam Quinn is a breaking news reporter for NorthJersey.com. To get breaking news directly to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter.

Email: quinnl@northjersey.com

Twitter: @Liam_D_Quinn

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Alpine NJ mansion on Frick Estate sells for $27.5 million