East Mountain mansion for sale

SPARTA — Sparta’s historic Chaumont estate, a 58-acre property located at 210 East Mountain Road with a famous past, is now being offered for sale through Lynn Garafola and Team Nest Builder, of Realty Executives’ Sparta office.
“Growing up in Lake Mohawk, I worked as a landscaper on the property. I would sit on the patio looking out over Lake Mohawk all the way to the Delaware Water Gap,” said owner Stephen Tilton.
Years later, Tilton and his wife purchased Chaumont as a summer home for their family. “My youngest son held his wedding with 400 guests here,” Tilton said.
The history of Chaumont can be traced to the 19th century, when Sparta’s revered iron businessman James Titman owned the land. Following the Great Depression, the Force family of Pennsylvania steel and mining fortune purchased the property as they desired a home equidistant from their New York City and Pennsylvania family residences. The Forces commissioned a famed Madison Avenue architect to design the home, which was constructed with 2-foot thick Pennsylvania mica stone walls by local Sparta masons and completed in 1934. Tage Jonsson, related to the founder of the Volvo automobile company, next owned the property from 1962 - until the early 1980’s.
In 1981, Ross Johnson, famed CEO of RJR Nabisco purchased the property, mentioned in New York Times bestseller Barbarians At The Gate: “Johnson continued to upgrade his own life-style, buying a huge French chateau-style house with a 40-acre estate in Sparta, New Jersey. He attempted to commute via helicopter to Nabisco’s headquarters in East Hanover, New Jersey, but was thwarted when town fathers repeatedly refused helicopters to land there.” Johnson surrounded himself with the rich and famous, Bobby Orr, Dinah Shore and Burt Reynolds among those, throwing massive parties at the estate, including the 600-guest RJR Reynolds/Nabisco merger party. Guest Pierre Trudeau, 15th Prime Minister of Canada, christened the property “Chaumont,” meaning “warm mountain.”
Today, the gated, gorgeous Chaumont estate awaits a new owner looking to enjoy all it has to offer. With 5 bedrooms, 5-1/2 bathrooms, a family room, media room, dining room, sunroom, office, updated kitchen and more, there’s plenty of space in which to spread out. Amenities including an elevator, 3 fireplaces, a sauna, steam room and outdoor pool add to Chaumont’s panache. The luxurious 1-bedroom, 2-bathroom pool house, added in 1984, also offers a full kitchen, living room with built-in bar, dining room and family room. The very private, park-like grounds also possess a creek, and hiking and snowmobiling trails.
For more information and to view images, visit www.ChaumontEstate.com. Interested buyers may arrange a private tour of the Chaumont estate through Lynn Garafola of Team Nest Builder at 973-222-3777.
Team Nest Builder, located at 54 Woodport Road, Sparta, provides boutique quality service to their clients while leveraging the latest technology available and their extensive local area knowledge and sharpened sales and negotiating skills, and by utilizing the extensive marketing resources offered by Realty Executives. The team is committed to making the home buying and selling process as stress-free as possible for their clients and among the best professional relationships they have ever experienced.