Sale Of Bergen County Mansion For $10.9M Was Biggest Celeb Home Sale In NJ

BERGEN COUNTY, NJ — As rents and home prices continue to rise, some folks are still looking for the mansion of their dreams. And some celebrities are looking to move onto the next adventure.

A New Jersey-based real estate firm recently compiled a list of the 10 biggest celebrity residential real estate transactions in 2023. A Bergen County mansion came in as the runner up in terms of transactions and got the top spot in terms of homes sold.

The biggest overall transaction was the listing of a home owned by fashion designer Marc Ecko. He's offering his "Gilded Age Castle" in Bernardsville, in Somerset County, for a whopping $13.7 million, according to the Robert Dekanski Team.

But in second place was hockey star Ilya Kovalchuk's home. He and his wife, Russian singer Nicole Andrazajtis Kovalchukm, sold their mansion in Alpine for $10.9 million in late October, according to the real estate group and other sources.

"NHL star Ilya Kovalchuk’s custom-built mansion is pending sale for $10.9 million. Initially an empty two-acre lot that
he purchased for $4.5 million in 2010, the now 22,000 square-foot mansion boasts a theatre, a plunge pool, and banquet-sized receptions," noted the real estate firm.

The firm added, "This was the fourth time Kovalchuck attempted to offload the Alpine property, dropping from an initial $18 million price tag in 2019 to $10.9 million."

Similarly, Marc Ecko had tried to sell his castle for $18 million in 2014. It was a private girls' school for 55 years before Ecko bought it in 2005 and began restoring it.

In third place last year, quarterback Aaron Rodgers purchased his Montclair home, in Essex County, for $9.5 million.

The Dekanski Team said that on average, celebrity properties in New Jersey were valued at approximately $4.7 million last year.

"New Jersey shines as a hidden gem," a spokesperson for The Robert Dekanski Team commented, "offering a sophisticated lifestyle without the sky-high price tags of California and New York. With an average celebrity property cost of $4,793,300, this is already almost 70 percent cheaper than the Golden State."