Years before he became one of the Empire State Building’s key financiers, an East Coast industrialist strategically positioned his home to overlook the evolving Manhattan skyline.
Listed this April for slightly less than $2.5 million by Christine Lane of Compass New Jersey, 10 Edgewood Terrace in Montclair was completed 115 years ago on what then was highly coveted real estate, according to an August 1907 report in The Montclair Times.
Known as the triangle, the property bound by Highland Avenue, Edgewood Road and Edgewood Terrace was “considered one of the finest residential sites on the mountainside, having a gentle slope and being prettily wooded with forest trees,” according to the report. The triangle later became known for shaping the fork in the road baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra famously told people “to take” to arrive at his Highland Avenue home.
Seeking to capitalize on the triangle’s strengths and lack of development in the early 1900s was Ellis P. Earle.
Earle, who in 1907 held the claims to one of Canada’s most productive silver mines, Ontario’s Nipissing Mine, bought the triangle that summer. Later that year, he revealed plans for the now eight-bedroom and nine-bathroom Tudor castle at 10 Edgewood Terrace.
The Montclair Times reported an estimated construction cost of $100,000. Add $50,000 for the property brokered by F. M. Crawley and Bros., who had their hands in much of Montclair’s posh mountainside development, it added.
The final cost of construction was closer to $91,000, the newspaper reported in 1909. Still, the cost for most new homes in town at the time was $6,000 or less, according to newspaper listings. The result of Earle’s lavish spending was featured in the December 1911 issue of Architecture.
Built from Germantown stone with terra cotta trimmings and a green slate roof, 10 Edgewood sits on 2.15 acres and contains roughly 12,000 square feet of living space. It boasts century-old touches, such as a library with custom built-ins, a first floor trimmed in oak and windows with leaded and stained glass. Still, it has been updated to feature a modern kitchen with top-tier stainless steel appliances, a massive center island and seating for more than a dozen.
Bedrooms are reserved for the second and third floors. Five, including the primary bedroom with its fireplace, skyline view and dual closets, are on the second floor. The first floor is built around a grand central hall.
The home was designed for Earle by architect Frank E. Wallis and his associate William J. Rogers, a duo best known for Georgian and Colonial homes, according to Montclair historical records. Wallis, who had trained in the office of Richard Morris Hunt, was “a noted authority on Colonial architecture,” according to his 1929 New York Times obituary. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he was also highly active in Montclair.
Wallis designed St. John’s Church on Montclair Avenue, a cluster of typical Montclair homes at the south end of Highland Avenue, including the one once owned by Berra, and several larger-scale homes. They include 190 South Mountain Ave., 32 Llewellyn Rd. and 3 Eagle Rock Way, according to local historical records.
When Earle died in October 1945, 10 Edgewood held his funeral services. Then Gov. Charles Edison attended, as did former governors James Fielder, Morgan Larson and Arthur Harry Moore. Earle had for more than 20 years been chairman of the state’s former Board of Control of Institutions and Agencies, a board he helped create while overseeing charitable organizations on behalf of the state.
“So effectively and economically did the hospitals, prisons and other public institutions function under Mr. Earle’s leadership that every succeeding governor who was in office […] reappointed him regardless of political affiliation,” The Montclair Times wrote in his obituary.
A large donor to Princeton University and the old Montclair Community Chest, Earle was also well known locally as a philanthropist. In 1930, Earle helped finance a former boy’s camp in Jefferson Township, called Camp Ranger.
Earle was born in September 1860 in Brooklyn and educated in Elizabeth as a teenager, according to his Montclair Times obituary. A law clerk at 18, he began a transition into the mining and banking industries while securing materials for his father-in-law’s metallic paint business. He broke off from the family business in 1898 to concentrate on importing and exporting precious metals, according to The Montclair Times. Six years later, he co-founded the Nipissing Mining Company, formerly one of North America’s largest silver producers, and began to amass serious wealth.
In about 1930, a chunk of that wealth went to supplement the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s $27.5 million loan for the Empire State Building. Earle, along with Louis Kaufman, Thomas Coleman du Pont, Pierre S. du Pont and others, helped former New York State Governor Al Smith advance a project conceived by DuPont executive and former GM executive John Jakob Raskob to build a tower taller than the Chrysler Building. The project was ambitious but ultimately made easier by Coleman du Pont who owned the midtown site that had then held the original Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
Earle’s Montclair home was later owned by Bob Gaudio, the keyboardist and background singer for The Four Seasons. Born in the Bronx and raised in Bergenfield, Gaudio was a key songwriter for the group, penning “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like A Man” among other hits after convincing his parents to let him leave Bergenfield High School at 16 to pursue music.
Before dropping out, Gaudio co-wrote “Short Shorts” as a 15-year-old member of the Royal Teens. After, Gaudio rose to fame and wrote and produced for other artists, including Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson and Neil Diamond. Gaudio moved out to California in the early 1970s and produced multiple full albums for Diamond. He earned a Grammy Award nomination in 1979 for producing the Barbra Streisand and Diamond duet “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.”
Another prominent owner of 10 Edgewood was Joseph Aiello, the former owner of the Wedgewood Cafeteria and Boonton’s Knoll Golf Club. Born in Sorrento, Italy, Aiello came to America as a pre-teen in 1904 and within a few years helped his family open a grocery store network with locations in Lake Hopatcong, Newark and Montclair, according to his January 1964 obituary in the Paterson News.
The grocery store was dovetailed with a meat and produce supplier, Aiello Bros. Inc., that operated prominently in the area in the mid-1900s. Aiello later founded the popular Wedgewood Cafeteria eatery in town and co-owned Montclair’s first post-Prohibition liquor license with his brother Gabriel Aiello, who owned Gabe’s Galley.
If you’ve got a big budget and you’re scouring the housing market for a bargain, the price of a lavish Hyde Park estate has dipped just below the $20 million mark.
Ledgerock, a modernist masterpiece perched on a jagged ledge at the Hudson River’s edge, is currently listed by Douglas Elliman at $19,995,000, down from its previous price of $25 million.
If that’s above your price range, consider that the home built for real estate mogul Jacob Frydman and his wife Monica was originally listed at a record-high $45 million not quite three years ago.
“We feel that the pricing now is in line with the market,” said Stacey Pinkas, one of the listing agents. “I think that pre-COVID they had it at a certain price point and now when we took on the listing it’s more in line with the market trends. And they are motivated to let go of the property.”
The Frydmans purchased the Dutchess County property in 2005, demolished three existing buildings and hired New Orleans-based architect Lee Ledbetter to design Ledgerock.
The couple envisioned a “dream home” where they could entertain and showcase an art collection containing dozens of sculptures, including a 3,000-pound lava-stone carving they brought back from Indonesia.
The five-year project culminated in a limestone and glass, five-bedroom residence with windows offering 360-degree views, 18- to 28-foot ceilings, and wood, marble and stone sourced from Europe, Africa and South America.
The 14,800-square-foot home features an elevator, two-story library, billiards room, gym, theater and indoor pool.
The 10.7-acre estate boasts a two-bedroom guesthouse, sculpture garden, 18-car garage with a car wash, outdoor saltwater pool, beach, helipad, fire pit, spa, outdoor kitchen and 5,000 square feet of travertine terraces.
Along with its luxurious amenities, Ledgerock comes with an annual estimated real estate tax bill of $108,392, according to the listing.
“It’s such a stunning property and special place, to see it not being used as often as one would hope,” Pinkas said.
Ledgerock sits directly on the Hudson’s shore, which would not be permitted under current zoning and setback laws requiring new homes to be constructed at least 100 feet away from the riverbank.
It’s got its own private dock, so you can arrive by boat or seaplane. But rest assured: The gated estate is accessible by car.
Ledgerock has a cantilevered design to protect it from flooding by diverting water underneath the house, Pinkas said.
The Frydmans would be open to selling Ledgerock’s furnishings, many of which were custom designed and built, she added.
“They own multiple properties,” Pinkas said of the Frydmans. “They are a mature couple and they are just not spending as much time there as they were previously.”
Robert Brum is a freelance journalist who writes about the Hudson Valley. Contact him and read his work at robertbrum.com.