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Richard Branson To Pretty Up New Jersey With 'Natirar'

Where: 2 Main Street [map], Peapack-Gladstone, NJ, United States, 07977

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.

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