Jon Stewart’s riverfront houses on Alston Court, left, and Fisher Place, right, represent a combined $7 million investment in Red Bank, not counting major renovations now underway on one house. (Click to enlarge)
Jon Stewart has doubled down on Red Bank.
The host of Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show,” who quietly paid $3.8 million for a riverfront home on Alston Court late last year, has supplemented that buy with the equally hush-hush purchase of the adjoining property one lot to the west, on Fisher Place, redbankgreen has learned.
Property records show Stewart, through an entity called Red Bank River Trust, paid $3.2 million in June for the second property, the former home of Kerri and Pat McGeehan. P.J. Rotchford, manager of the Gloria Nilson Realtors office in Rumson, which was involved in the transaction, confirmed that the trust is Stewart’s.
The Alston Court purchase was through an entity called Shamsky Monkey Trust, though which Stewart also bought a Tribeca loft for $5.8 million in 2005.
Together, the properties represent a $7 million investment in the borough. And that’s not counting the extensive overhaul Stewart and his wife, Tracey, are giving the century-old Alston Court Victorian.
So, what does Stewart plan to do with two riverfront mansions? Stewart did not respond to a request for comment. But Rotchford says the comedian was captivated by the Fisher Place home’s move-in condition.
“He was planning major renovations on Alston Court, and he wanted a place for his family for the summer, and so he went and purchased the house next door,” Rotchford said. “I guess when you have the means to do it, it’s nice.”
And when the gut-job on the Victorian is done? “My guess is he’ll hold onto” the Fisher Place house, Rotchford says.
The deals appear to have some riverfront property owners in Red Bank salivating, but a pair of easy-money, $3-million-plus sales shouldn’t be taken as a true indication of market value, Rotchford cautions.
Stewart “can pay whatever he needs to pay to get what he wants,” Rotchford said. “He didn’t care.”
The March sale of retired Merrill Lynch exec Larry Roberts’s Vista Place home for $2.6 million is more in line with the top of the market, he said.
The Alston Court house is assessed at $2.58 million, and the Fisher Place house at $2.48 million.
