Modern Living: The Midas Mansion

What costs more than the Krupp diamond or a drawing by Rembrandt? Answer: a lonely homestead tucked away in the sylvan woodlands of New Jersey. Though there is nothing so gauche as a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn of this brand-new, Mediterranean-style villa, the hunt is on for a buyer The price tag: a cool $1,000,000.

At that cost, the lavish mansion, offered by the Smoke Rise Co. of New Jersey, is probably the most expensive new house ever put on sale by a developer in the U.S. Fronted by an electrically heated moat guaranteed not to freeze up in winter, the white stucco, three-story villa has 25 rooms, including a temperature-controlled wine cellar for 10,000 bottles, a gymnasium, dance hall, his-and-her saunas, and a master bedroom suite complete with a 10-ft. whirlpool bath.

Scattered liberally throughout the palatial pad are some $200,000 worth of marble columns, doorways and stairs, and an ample supply of golden bathroom fixtures. Beneath the veneer of Old World elegance, the house has the very latest in electronic gadgetry: radiant wires heat up at the mere touch of a toe on a bathroom floor; an intercom system connects every room.

The estate's 6½ wooded acres border on a private lake (stocked, of course with trout and bass), and the property includes a swimming pool and a barbecue pit big enough to broil a hippo. Future owners have access to the 55-horse stable, the 20 miles of bridle paths, trap-and skeet-shooting facilities of Smoke Rise—a private, walled and guarded community for the well-to-do located some 25 miles from Manhattan.

George Foley, president of the Smoke Rise Co., is confident that there are plenty of tycoons around with enough money for his remarkable mansion. "We're not concerned about there being enough affluent potential buyers," he insists. "Our problem is selectivity." At week's end, though, the house that has everything was lacking just one thing to make it a home: a buyer.