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by John K. Turpin & W. Barry Thomson
Mountain Colony Press Inc., 2004  

During the decades following the Civil War, the United States experienced tremendous economic growth and the concomitant accumulation of enormous wealth by a select, but growing and increasingly interrelated, group of industrialists and financiers who were determined to join the ranks of the established upper class. To assimilate themselves into society, these new plutocrats lavishly spent their newfound wealth to acquire all of the physical manifestations of the aristocratic life, including large country houses in one or more of the country's exclusive residential colonies, such as Newport, Bar Harbor, Lenox, the Main Line, the Hudson River Valley, and the Somerset Hills of New Jersey. These great country estates were intended to be examples of conspicuous consumption and the pursuit of leisure and a blatant statement of the owner's social standing.

The two, large-format, lavishly illustrated volumes of New Jersey Country Houses: The Somerset Hills chronicle the country estates that were built in the rolling countryside of northern Somerset and nearby portions of Morris counties, New Jersey, from the 1870s through the Great Depression to the start of World War II. Volume 1 covers the estate houses that were constructed prior to World War I, and Volume 2 covers the prolific estate-building activity that took place between the two world wars. Each volume also includes essays about other landmark buildings and social activities, such as foxhunting, carriage driving, and country clubs, that are associated with the history of the Somerset Hills.

Hardcover  
263 pages
ISBN: 0-9749504-0-8
$75.00, plus shipping and handling and sales tax for New Jersey residents  
Available from the publisher

Co-authors John K. “Jack” Turpin and W. Barry Thomson both grew up in the Somerset Hills on properties that were once part of estates featured in their books. Their lifelong fascination with architecture and local history, as well as their extensive knowledge of the Somerset Hills, led them to join forces to create these volumes.

At the time of his death, in 2010, Jack Turpin was president of Turpin Realtors, north-central New Jersey’s premier independent real estate firm that had been established fifty years before by his mother. Jack was also a trustee of Blair Academy in Blairstown, New Jersey, and a member of the borough council of Far Hills, New Jersey.

After leaving a corporate career in New York, Barry Thomson has been engaged with many architectural and local history projects in New Jersey. He has written articles that have appeared in The Black River Journal and other publications, and he is a frequent lecturer on topics of architectural and local history. A one-time David Rockefeller Fellow of the Partnership for New York City, Barry has served on the boards of many not-for-profit organizations in New York and New Jersey. In New Jersey, Barry is at present an advisory trustee of the Historical Society of the Somerset Hills and Friends of Historic Bernardsville and a trustee of the Schiff Natural Lands Trust. He has also volunteered his services as history consultant for five Mansion in May fund-raising projects sponsored by the Women’s Association for Morristown Medical Center.