House of Stewart: TV funnyman Jon Stewart, below, paid $3.8 million for this house on the Navesink, records indicate. (Click to enlarge)
Take that, Rumson! Eat our shorts, Navesink section of Middletown!
Red Bank has finally bagged a true celebrity homeowner.
Jon Stewart, the political satirist who anchors the Daily Show on Comedy Central, bought a house fronting on the Navesink River here last December, according to property records.
And while he’s no Bruce Springsteen or Bon Jovi, the purchase instantly puts the rubbery-faced Stewart at the top of the heap in terms of star power in the borough, ahead of a couple of children’s book authors and butcher Ralph ‘Johnny Jazz‘ Gatta.
Jon Stewart at work.
The house, on Alston Court, sold for $3.8 million to a family trust through which Stewart and his wife, Tracey, also bought a Tribeca loft for $5.8 million in 2005. Monmouth County records show it assessed at $2.6 million, with a yearly tax bill of almost $42,000.
The seller was Arthur Parent, who owned the Tredwell House in Rumson, a circa 1670 structure that was the second-oldest building in Monmouth County when it was destroyed by fire in 2006.
According to a local real estate agent who was not involved in the transaction but has toured the property, the cedar-shake sided house is “a big, rambling, 1891 Victorian with turrets and wrap-around porches and it was truly lovely.” It sits on 1.3 acres and has 166 feet of river frontage.
Unknown is whether Stewart plans to make the house his primary residence. A Comedy Central spokesman said Stewart “is not doing any press at this time.”
It doesn’t appear that the Stewarts, who have two children, have moved in yet. redbankgreen rang their doorbell Saturday to find no one home and the house in the midst of a renovation job, with interior walls and flooring ripped out down to the studs and plywood.
Word on Alston is that Stewart introduced himself to some of the neighbors recently, but none we spoke to had seen or met him.
Former Red Bank Mayor Mike Arnone, who lives two doors away, says he goes to bed too early to catch the Daily Show, but likes Stewart from what he knows of him from interviews.
“I find him to be an extremely interesting guy, and very comedic,” says Arnone. “I admire the guy’s quickness.”
Other neighbors said there’s been some buzz about having a new celeb on the block. The last one was Susan McGinnis, a former host of the CBS Morning news who still owns a house there but no longer lives in it.
” I just hope we don’t get groupies on our street,” says resident Ann Roseman, a member of the Red Bank board of ed. “CBS Morning Show news anchors don’t have a lot of groupies.”
