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A NOVEL ESTATE
Bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank’s
home goes on the market
WRITTEN BY LAURA ADAMS STIANSEN AND CINDY SCHWEICH HANDLER
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF SAM JOSEPH
N
ew York Times best-selling author Dorothea Benton Frank, best
known for her novels centering around a heroine finding her way
back to the Lowcountry of South Carolina, is selling the Montclair
home she has lived in since 1986. Named Highwall Estate, the
1.22 acre property — located adjacent to Eagle Rock Reservation
— has 21 rooms, including seven bedrooms, a gourmet kitchen,
six full baths and multi-zone air conditioning.
Originally built in 1928, the English country manor-inspired home — designed
by renowned architect Charles Lewis Bowman — is listed on New Jersey’s Register
of Historic Places, and features craftsmanship and style that’s associated with the
Montclair area, including walnut and oak woodwork, a red clay tiled roof, clustered
stone corbelled chimney, half-timbered brick paneled walls with bracketed overhang,
a curvilinear design on gables and a leaded stained glass arched doorway to an open
porch. The home is currently listed for $3.35 million.
INSPIRED BY THE CLASSICS
According to the listing agent, Sam Joseph of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices New Jersey
Properties, one of the most spectacular rooms in the house is the two-story library at left, with its
balcony of bookcases, plaster rosette ceiling, wet bar and hidden passageway modeled after the one in
novelist Sir Walter Scott’s library — only this one is larger. Inset: The entrance raises expectations of the
grand decor within.
MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE SPRING 2019
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