Richard Branson To Pretty Up New Jersey With 'Natirar'

November 24, 2009 at 9:50 AM | by juliana | 0 Comments

It looks like we may be making a trip out to New Jersey very soon. That's because billionaire fly guy himself Sir Richard Branson is opening a resort in New Jersey next week that will have a cooking and wine school on the premises. The New York Times reports:

The resort, located in Peapack-Gladstone in Somerset County, is called Natirar Y(the reverse of Raritan, the river that runs at the edge of the property). A restaurant, Ninety Acres, will be open to the public, along with a cooking school run by Viking, the kitchen appliance company, and a wine school. Natirar, which consists of 492 acres in total, was built as a private estate in 1912 and in 1983 it was bought by the king of Morocco to use as a summer residence. The Moroccan royal family sold it to Somerset County in 2003. All except the 90 acres that have been leased to Branson and his partner, Bob Wojtowicz, are used as parkland.

Hah, we love it. They took a dirty sounding word like Raritan and prettied it up to sound more exotic. Natirar. Maybe we should do that with all of New Jersey's town names. For instance, Nekoboh-Hoboken. Elliveryas-Sayreville (Jon Bon Jovi's hometown.) Timmus-Summit (our hometown.) Erohs Yesrej-Jersey Shore. Man, you could create a new epic journey through middle earth using backwards Jersey town names.

But back to the resort. The restaurant and culinary center will be opened in the former carriage house on the property. All interiors are done by David Rockwell, working with another architecture firm, RMJM.

The resort's chef at the Ninety Acres restaurant will be David C. Felton who previously worked at the Pluckemin Inn in Bedminister. The restaurant will only be open Tuesday through Sunday.

While there is a website up and running for Natirar, the resort and spa are still being built so guest rooms will not come online for a little bit longer. But when they do, expect 76 guestrooms and three guest cottages. We haven't seen any Virgin Resorts branding yet but we assume that Natirar will be a part of the Virgin Limited Edition collection that includes the Lodge Verbier and The Kasbah.

There will also be a private, invitation-only Natirar membership club, tennis courts, a pool with cabanas and a ballroom where every NJ bride is going to want to hold her wedding. Paging the Real Housewives of New Jersey.

But in all seriousness, we're so excited Branson is brave enough to open a resort in New Jersey. We've been telling people this for years: New Jersey is not all Jersey Shore guidos, Sopranos and the Ironbound district of Newark. There's a reason it's called the Garden State. Now, the rest of you can enjoy it too.

And for those of you who aren't from or living in the great state of Wen Yesrej, Natirar is 40 miles from New York City and 70 miles from Philadelphia.

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