Chatsworth Country Club

Chatsworth, NJ.

1894-early 1900s
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In the early 1890s, Italian Prince Mario Ruspoli was an attache at the Italian Embassy in Washington, DC. During his stay in the US, he married an American woman whose family owned thousands of acres of land in the area of the pine barrens now known as Chatsworth. He enjoyed the area so much that he built a villa for his wife and himself along the shore of Lake Shamong (now Chatsworth Lake).
The villa became known as the Chatsworth Country Club. It was a three story tudor-style manor house. It is said that it was named after Chatsworth House, the home of the English Duke of Devonshire.
The surrounding area (now part of the "pine barrens" of New Jersey) was a popular retreat in those days. Many of America's "royalty" of the time, the Astors, Morgans, and Vanderbilts among them, were frequent visitors to the Chatsworth manor.
The house was destroyed by fire in the early 1900s.

There is nothing left at the site now. Except for a pattern of criss-crossing paths in the woods, there is no sign that anything was once there.

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Created- Sun, Dec. 6, 1998
Revised- Sun, Jan. 10, 1999
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