Inside the $10 Million Estate of a Macy's Heir with Ties to the Titanic

Tower Hill Farm, a sprawling 20-acre New Jersey estate formerly owned by Herbert Straus, is now on the market for the first time since 1949. Carrying a hefty price tag of $10 million, the property contains five different residences, a pool, tennis court, a small barn with paddocks for horses, and more features. The property's many gables, vaulted arches, winding pebble pathways, climbing wisteria and ivy, and large rounded tower give the compound a romantic, storybook aesthetic.

Herbert sadly died before the estate was complete and never got to live there, but that's not the only tragedy tied to the site.

Herbert Straus was the son of Macy's co-owner Isidor Straus. Isidor and his brother Nathan took ownership of the retail company R.H. Macy & Co. in the mid 1890s and oversaw the construction of what would become (until 2009) the world's largest department store, in Manhattan's Herald Square.

Isidor and his wife Ida spent the winter of 1911 into 1912 seeking warmth and respite in the French Riviera. After few months in Europe, they were set to journey home in April aboard the Titanic. Isidor and Ida sadly went down with the ship and never made it back to their Upper West Side home.

Ida somewhat famously refused to get into a lifeboat without her husband, and he refused to get in a lifeboat while there were still women and children aboard the sinking ship. Their dedication to each other is memorialized in James Cameron's film Titanic, in the scene where we see an elderly couple cuddled together on their bed. It is also memorialized by a monument near their former home on 105th Street.

After the death of their parents, Herbert, and his brother Percy Straus, got to work building on the 100 acres of land they had purchased in Middletown, New Jersey. Herbert and his wife Therese commissioned architect Alfred Hopkins to design a compound in the style of a French Norman château. The gardens were designed by Martha Brookes Hutcheson, one of America's first female landscape architects.

Joan Adler, executive director of the Straus Historical Society, told the Wall Street Journal that the local train line was extended so that materials could be transported to the construction site.

Sadly, Herbert died in 1933 while the complex was still being built. His wife oversaw the remaining construction projects including a clock tower, new stables, and a dairy, but didn't hold onto the property for long.

According to a 1990 newsletter from the Middletown Township Historical Society, Therese Straus kept the property until 1949 when it was broken up into multiple lots and sold to various buyers. "The two farms, the main house, and superintendents house were sold separately at auction," the newsletter notes.

Former farm buildings on a 13-acre lot off Cooper Road, called Cobble Close Farm, were converted into homes. These individual co-ops have since come up for sale various times since 2015.

The property on sale now, Tower Hill Farm, lies about a mile and a half north at 40 Independence Road. James McConnell purchased the 20-acre lot from the Straus family in 1949 for just $35,000. The family transformed the stables into a 4,000-square-foot residence and multiple generations of McConnells have lived in the various residences on the estate over the past seventy-plus years.

Now, the compound is ready for a new owner, only the third since the buildings were constructed almost 100 years ago.

Check out more photos of the estate in the gallery below and join us on April 22nd to learn about Herbert's uncle, Macy's co-owner Nathan Straus, and his life-saving philanthropic endeavors in NYC as biographer Andrew Fishers shares insights from his new book!

Nathan Straus: From Macy's Magnate to International Humanitarian - Book Launch

Wednesday, April 22nd at 6 pm: Join author Andrew Fisher for a lively discussion about the philanthropic efforts of an NYC retail tycoon, as told in his new book.

⭐ Free for all 💻 Virtual

Book Here