Jawdropper of the Week: Victorian Colonial in Edgewater Park

Tucked behind the modest Colonials and Cape Cods lining Cottage Avenue is this much grander Colonial at 445 Cottage Ave., Edgewater Park, NJ 08010 — a living link to the days when Philadelphia merchant princes and others made this town their summer resort. / Photography by Steve Edwards via Compass Real Estate; rooms virtually staged

Somewhere inside this grand Edgewater Park Victorian Colonial house for sale is a one-room farmhouse with a root cellar. That farmhouse, built in the early 1700s, may well be the oldest house in Edgewater Park, for it was the homestead of a farm that covered most of the present-day township.

But you’d have to dig real deep to find it, for over the centuries that followed, a series of owners expanded it until it became the mansion you see now.

Sometime in the late 1700s, the house got a second story and three additional rooms: A kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms on the second. After that, it passed into the hands of less humble people.

First up: A gentleman named Elias Boudinot, who lived in it in the early 1800s, according to Riverfront Historical Society records. Before moving into what’s now Edgewater Park, Boudinot served as President of the Continental Congress from 1783 to 1784. (Under the Articles of Confederation, he was the equivalent of our President of the United States now.) After the Constitution was adopted, Boudinot served as a Member of Congress from New Jersey before President George Washington appointed him Director of the United States Mint.

The house passed from Boudinot’s hands (or more likely those of his heirs) in 1855, when a Philadelphian named Manderson bought it along with a good chunk of land along the Delaware River. This was the era when wealthy Philadelphia merchants turned what’s now Edgewater Park into a riverside retreat from the city’s summer heat and diseases.

Manderson gradually transformed that modest expanded farmhouse into the mansion you see today. (We featured a similar, slightly older mansion just downriver from this one when it went on the market in 2022.) The first addition was a two-story Italianate structure tacked onto the farmhouse soon after he bought it. In 1858, he added the four-story tower. Then, in 1898, the house got an extreme makeover that added a third story to the Italianate mansion, inserted a staircase with a Palladian window into it and tacked on a two-story wing that included a library. The end result is the Victorian Colonial you see above.

Known as “Towerview,” it has been home to former NBC10 anchor and New Jersey state legislator Diane Allen and her husband Sam for more than 40 years. Now the couple have put it up for sale on the open market for the first time in its history.

Foyer

And it’s as impressive on the inside as it is on the outside. You walk from the porte-cochere into a foyer rich with dark wood trim.

Detail of main staircase banister (left) and elevator (right)

You can also see where an elevator shaft got inserted later. Clearly, whoever installed it was an early adopter of the technology, for it’s completely open. It connects the first and second floors.

Living room

To the left of the foyer and entrance hall is this expansive living room.

Library

The library lies beyond it.

Dining room

Directly in back of the foyer is the dining room.

Family room

After looking at the floor plans, I’ve concluded that the family room must be located in the original early-1700s house.

Kitchen

Next to it is the kitchen, one of the rooms in the late-1700s addition. If I’m right about the family room, then this has been the house’s kitchen since the late 1700s. Of course, as you can see, it has kept up with changing times and technology.

Sunroom

A sunroom, a full bath and a butler’s pantry leading to the outdoor pool occupy the bottom floor of the tower.

Primary bedroom

The second floor contains five bedrooms. The primary bedroom has windows looking out on the Delaware.

Primary bathroom

It also has a large dressing room and a bathroom with vintage tile wainscoting.

The second bedroom, next to the primary one, also has an en-suite bath. Two other bedrooms, including one of the two in the expanded farmhouse, share a bathroom, and the fifth — the second bedroom in the expanded farmhouse — has access to a bathroom in the tower.

Billiard room

The house’s third floor contains a sixth bedroom, a wardrobe room, a hall bath, and this billiard room. A seventh bedroom lies on the third floor of the tower. The tower’s top floor contained the butler’s bedroom. Allen used it as her office.

The basement includes a wine cellar among its six rooms.

Aerial view showing pool

Dock

The Allens added the pool on one side and the lush landscaping around it. They also rebuilt its dock.

Rear elevation

View from back porch

You will no doubt want to relax on the back porch in the summer and take in the view of the Delaware.

This Edgewater Park Victorian Colonial house for sale was clearly built for entertaining as well as living. And over the years, it has hosted U.S. senators and representatives, New Jersey governors, presidential candidates and film and TV celebrities. The Allens have raised millions of dollars here for charities and political candidates.

You could do the same if you buy it. For while this house is camouflaged by its neighbors closer to the street, it still sits on a lot large enough for you to live like a grandee.

THE FINE PRINT

BEDS: 7

BATHS: 6 full, 1 half

SQUARE FEET: 7,012

SALE PRICE: $1,750,000

OTHER STUFF: This house also comes with riparian rights, as a house with a dock ought to have.

445 Cottage Ave., Edgewater Park, NJ 08010 [Naoji Moriuchi and Lauren Sass | Compass]