About Peapack And Gladstone, NJ
Peapack and Gladstone, NJ is a borough in the New York City Metro area and is part of Somerset County. It lies to the east of U.S. Highway 206 traveling north from the interchange between Interstate 78 (which takes you east into New York City) and Interstate 287. It is a small community with fewer than 3,000 inhabitants and covers about 5.9 square miles. It also lies in an area known as Somerset Hills which is where many wealthy people built their mansions.
It is thought that the first part of the name, Peapack, originated from the Lenape Native American Tribe.
They had a word, “peapackton”, which meant the “marriage of waters” describing the Raritan River and Peapack Brook. The second part of the community name, Gladstone, is in honor of a British Prime Minister who served at various times between 1868 and 1894, William Ewart Gladstone.
Many of the post-Civil War affluent settled on estates in Somerset Hills.
Peapack and Gladstone, NJ were part of this area. Following the American Civil War, a few people became incredibly wealthy and decided to build aristocratic mansions on estates they purchased in the hills. They did it to display their social status to the all that should happen to pass by.
Limestone was a big industry in this region during the 18th and 19th centuries. New Jersey was an area of heavy farming and the soil was becoming depleted of minerals. Lime was used as a soil additive to increase crop production. Peapack and Gladstone sit on a bed of limestone and the area was quarried in order to produce lime that farmers could purchase and use in their fields.
The process of producing lime for soil was to burn limestone in a kiln.
However, lime had many more uses such as an additive in whitewash and mortar, a de-icing agent on icy roads, and in leather tanning. So in order to handle the industrial demand for lime, large kilns were built where the limestone was put through a burning process that would produce lime for commercial and farming purposes. Today, you can see one of those limekilns preserved as a historical landmark in Peapack on Main Street’s east side.
The borough actually started as two separate villages.
One was Peapack and the other Gladstone. They merged together and incorporated in 1912. Gladstone, around the time of World War II, was the end-of-the-line train station for New York City commuters and there were local taxi services available to shuttle the commuters from Gladstone to their estates in Somerset Hills.
To the southwest of the center of Peapack and Gladstone, NJ lies the Natirar Estate.
This is a 492-acre area with green wood lines and rolling hills. It used to be the estate of the late King of Morocco Hassan II and it was sold to Somerset County in 2003. Today, 90 acres has been leased to the Virgin Group controlled by Sir Richard Branson who has embarked on significant development projects on it. Construction for the Virgin Spa began in 2010 and in November of the same year, the famous 90-Acre Restaurant opened. More construction is in progress to make Natirar a world-class luxury resort.
The next time you are driving through, stop and visit Peapack and Gladstone, NJ.
Many have already visited the 90-Acre restaurant and have nothing but good reviews for their dining experience. It is truly an area that shows a small picture of how the aristocrats used to live in America.