(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- The 112-year-old Natirar mansion, a Tudor‑style brick manor house that was once the king of Morocco’s residence, would look right at home in Somerset, England, or the Scottish Highlands. Down its long driveway, surrounded by towering old maple trees and lush parklands, its 1912 carriage house is covered with ivy. Behind it, a garden stretches across 10 acres, with neat rows of cucumber melon and corn to supply the kitchens bustling with cooks.
Yet all this is some 3,500 miles away from the UK—and less than an hour’s drive from Manhattan—in Somerset County, New Jersey. In October, Natirar will raise its flag as a Pendry resort with 46 guest rooms, 21 suites and a sprawling full-service spa that will pamper you like royalty—all for about $600 a night.
The manor house and gardens were erected more than a century ago on behalf of Katy Ladd, whose father was a business partner of John D. Rockefeller’s, and modeled after Wroxton Abbey in Warwickshire, England. King Hassan II took ownership in the 1980s to be closer to his sons, who were then students at Princeton. Twenty years after he bought it for $7.5 million, his sons sold it for $22 million to Somerset County, which preserved 411 acres as public parkland and sold the other 90 acres for commercial use, eventually paving the way for this hotel project.
Pendry is the edgier sibling brand to ultraluxe Montage Resorts, known for delivering crème de la crème service and multigenerational appeal in classic destinations such as Park City, Utah, and Healdsburg, California. Natirar, which will join Pendry properties in Chicago, San Diego and Newport Beach, California, should serve as enough of a lure for urbanites to explore a state many have written off as a destination without luxury.
“The fact that it happens to be in New Jersey is neither here nor there,” says Michael Fuerstman, Pendry’s co-founder. “What’s really incredible is that this is a country estate one hour away from Manhattan.”
The property aims to bring the tristate area a type of steeped-in-history countryside glamour for which people are willing to fly across the Atlantic. Think of it as a Downton Abbey outside New York City, competing with a swarm of small, hipstery inns upstate.
The posh digs and local partnerships afford Natirar guests all the amenities and leisure activities of an elite American resort, whether equestrian sports, lawn games, golf or tennis. And that’s not to mention the culinary ambition of Peter Rudolph—a veteran of Cape Arundel Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine—or the massive spa, which will rival Auberge’s Mayflower Inn in Connecticut or Gurney’s in the Hamptons for sheer decadence.
The Natirar estate sits on 500 combined acres of private land and state preserve along the Raritan River—yes, “Natirar” is the river’s name in reverse—where guests can go fly-fishing, hiking or on all sorts of other adventures. The US Equestrian team trains down the road, and the hotel arranges horseback riding through nearby stables. Hamilton Farm Golf Club is a 15-minute drive away, where Natirar guests will be able to play. And the farm is so comprehensive that it’s the basis for dozens of weekly workshops: Garlic braiding, backyard horticulture and cooking classes start right in the fields.
All this makes Natirar an irreplicable “one of one,” as Fuerstman says. It’s what gives his father, Montage Resorts Chief Executive Officer Alan Fuerstman, a native Jersey boy, the confidence that Natirar could be one of the country’s top hotels.
The credentials are undeniable. The estate, with its Gilded Age halls and rambling landscapes, will join the thin ranks of American estate hotels such as Greyfield Inn on Georgia’s Cumberland Island—a former Carnegie family home—and Wentworth Mansion in Charleston, South Carolina. The farm programming is as immersive as what’s on offer at Wildflower Farms, up in New York’s Hudson Valley, and its ambitions to bring back heritage produce varietals rival those of Tennessee’s Blackberry Farm.
The 66 rooms of the new Pendry fill a newly constructed wing of the estate, with a mix of traditional and modern stylings that include walnut headboards and sleek coffee tables. The marble bathrooms have deep soaking tubs, and some rooms come with bay windows facing an uninterrupted countryside vista—with not a single building piercing the foliage.
In the 33,000-square-foot original mansion itself, faithfully preserved spaces such as the limestone foyer and oak-paneled Great Room—now with check-print club chairs by its towering fireplace and a restored ornamental plaster ceiling—function as reception and common space. Ladd’s Tavern, just off the Great Room, serves breakfast, lunch, dinner, cocktails and afternoon tea.
You’ll pass the dramatic marble patio pool on your way to the fine dining spot Ninety Acres, which fills that striking carriage house. There, chef Rudolph has a tight focus on what grows in his literal backyard. Among the things I tried in August on a private tour before the hotel opened: Jersey tomatoes and purslane in a verjus vinaigrette with shallots and chives, regionally caught swordfish with roasted grapes and braised fennel, then a basil and lemon-pepper pavlova for dessert. The wine program is spearheaded by born-and-bred Jerseyite sommelier Sam Mushman, formerly the wine director at Jean-Georges’ Public Kitchen at the Public Hotel on the Lower East Side.
What will bring me back, though, is the 19,000-square-foot spa, where a long indoor pool faces a panoramic window that offers breathtaking views. It will make a sumptuous year-round spot. To one side is a giant Himalayan salt chamber; on the other, a mud-bathing room is outfitted with a waterfall shower stall and some properly luxurious mud (yes, luxury mud), infused with fragrances of lavender or eucalyptus grown in the garden.
All this should, indeed, be enough to impress the most Garden State-skeptical New Yorkers. And the Fuerstmans say they hope it will also be a magnet for business travelers visiting the dozen or so Fortune 500 companies—Campbell Soup, Johnson & Johnson, Merck—based in the central New Jersey region. Additional business, they say, may come from Pendry Manhattan West in Hudson Yards, where New York-bound travelers may stay for a few days of meetings before a weekend jaunt to the countryside.
If upscaling the state’s reputation is a side effect of Natirar’s future success, the Fuerstmans would be thrilled. New Jersey is a misunderstood place, Michael says. “And we’re really excited about the opportunity to help people understand it better.”
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