HISTORIC MORRIS COUNTY –
NEW JERSEY'S GREAT AMERICAN GETAWAY:

The Gilded Age of Morris County

By 1900 the nation's business and financial leaders, seeking escape from New York City, discovered Morris County (which was renowned for its isolation, ideal climate and unspoiled countryside) and began constructing large country estates. Within a few years, more millionaires lived within a three-mile radius of the Morristown Green than anywhere else in the United States.

These magnificent estates were numerous enough to fill the pages of a pre-World War I vintage picture book entitled Beautiful Homes of Morris County, boasting the most opulent homes of moguls such as Otto H. Kahn, Charles Mellon and the Frelinghuysens. Sadly, the introduction of the federal income tax and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, sounded the death knell for the large estates. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the impressive mansions that lined Madison Avenue’s "Millionaires Row" were demolished to avoid rising property taxes and upkeep expenses.