A lavish property in Alpine, New Jersey, has traded hands again of late, and after a long effort to build, and then sell off, a trophy estate. The seller was Richard Kurtz, the founder and CEO of apartment management company Kamson. He ultimately let the six-acre mansion go for $27.5 million — after spending $27 million, in addition to the cost of the land, to design and construct a 33,000 sq. ft. chateau that has acquired the title The Stone Mansion.

The city of Alpine must attract the quixotic, at least where building one’s own doomed version of Xanadu is concerned. Hockey player and Olympic Gold Medal-winner Ilya Kovalchuk recently relisted his own Chateau-crowned estate in the same subdivision for $15 million.

Kurtz’s property is the more grandiose, if anyone is keeping score (someone had better be, or such construction is truly in vain). But Kurtz has had a sense of humor about the failed project; a busy fellow rarely at home base, he quickly realized that he would never be able to spend enough time at the address to make the project’s two art galleries, saltwater pool and pool house, and indoor basketball court worthwhile. The property eventually became something of a white elephant, attracting a sizable tax bill.

The recent closing brings to an end a story that began a decade ago, when Kurtz initially listed the superbly crafted residence at nearly $70 million. By 2019, it was on the open market at about half that figure.

The twelve-bedroom Stone Mansion sits on a six-acre parcel that is but one tenth of the size of the original property Kurtz acquired in 2006 for $58 million. He acquired the 62-acre plot from Henry Clay Frick II, the grandson of industrialist Henry Clay Frick.

Kurtz’s net worth is reportedly north of $1 billion.