NJ's most expensive home for sale is in Colts Neck. Here's what $28M will buy you.

WellSpring Farm, an equestrian estate on 160 acres in Colts Neck, features seven bedrooms, 12 bathrooms, a world-class barn, wine cellar and more. Now it just needs to find a deep-pocketed buyer who loves horses.

The property owned Robert and Laura Vukovich, on and off the market for the past three years, is on the market again with a list price of $28 million, making it the most expensive home for sale in the state.

"It's a world-class property," said Tom Postilio, a broker with Compass and the home's real estate agent. "It's probably a very specific buyer. But buyers who have an interest in equestrian-related activities are drawn to Colts Neck because of the open expanses of land."

The property, listed by Postilio and partner Mickey Conlon, is set back from Route 537, and its features include a 3,500-bottle wine cellar, an exercise room, a 12-seat home theater and an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Its closest neighbor appears to be Laird & Co., America's oldest distiller.

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Observers said Colts Neck remains in high demand. The town offers seclusion in otherwise densely populated New Jersey, with easy access to New York and the beaches, and it is home to two of Monmouth County's biggest celebrities, Bruce Springsteen and Jon Stewart.

Homes there take a little longer to sell — an average of 61 days through the first five months of the year, compared with 43 days in Monmouth County, according to figures from the New Jersey Association of Realtors and the Monmouth Ocean Regional Realtors trade groups.

But through the first seven months of the year, the median price of a home sold in Colts Neck was $1.25 million, and sellers received 98% of their list price, according to the Monmouth Ocean Realtors group.

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"The Colts Neck market is strong, it's healthy," said Pascale Coppola, a real estate agent with Heritage House Sotheby's International Realty in Holmdel. "There isn't a lot of inventory right now, like other towns."

WellSpring Farm has taken longer to sell than most. It first went on the market in June 2021, according to Zillow's property history.

The estate has been built over the years by Vukovich, who founded Roberts Pharmaceutical Corp., an Eatontown company that bought and sold specialty drugs that were in late stages of development. He took the company public in 1990, and he was chairman when the company was sold in 1999 to British-based Shire Pharmaceuticals Group for $1 billion in stock.

Vukovich bought the Colts Neck property in 1999. And he began to buy racehorses, housing them in the 24-stall barn or the eight-stall quarantine barn that are on the grounds. Among his winners: Leave No Trace, who won the top-level Spinaway Stakes for 2-year-old fillies at Saratoga Race Course in 2022.

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The Vukoviches decided to downsize and move to their home in Florida, Postilio said, and they've put WellSpring up for sale.

How expensive is it? A buyer putting 20% and getting a 30-year mortgage at a 6.81% interest rate would have a monthly payment of $171,694. While the buyer would be spared the monthly HOA fee, maintaining the grounds of the 160 acres likely will require a staff of its own; the property is so expansive that mowing the lawn is virtually a constant endeavor.

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"The luxury market itself is doing pretty well, but this is a very specific kind of property," Postilio said. "While nobody is obligated to run it as an equestrian facility, it seems like that is the ideal buyer. To assemble a parcel of land this size and go through the construction process of course would take years. So there's a tremendous amount of value to purchasing a completed property and a fully operational property."

"There's a staff that runs the household, and a staff that runs the equestrian component, and we think that would be of tremendous value to the prospective buyer," he said.

Michael L. Diamond is a business reporter for the Asbury Park Press who has been writing about the New Jersey economy, real estate market and health care industry since 1999. He can be reached at mdiamond@gannettnj.com.