Horse Property in Somerset County, NJ: The Somerset Hills

Bedminster, Bernardsville, Far Hills, and Peapack-Gladstone form one of the most institutionally significant equestrian corridors in the country -- not just working horse farms, but the U.S. Equestrian Team Foundation's own headquarters and a century-old steeplechase tradition. Here's what a buyer looking at horse property in this corridor should know.

This page covers what's specific to Somerset County. For the general explanation, see the national guide.

A nationally significant equestrian corridor, not just horse-friendly zoning

The Somerset Hills -- Bedminster, Bernardsville, Bernards Township, Far Hills, and Peapack-Gladstone in Somerset County's north -- carry a different kind of equestrian distinction than most horse-country real estate markets. The United States Equestrian Team Foundation is headquartered at Hamilton Farm in Peapack-Gladstone, and the property's historic barn and stable complex was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 18, 2018. The U.S. Olympic equestrian team trained in the Somerset Hills for more than 40 years, and the area continues to draw significant national competitions and a concentration of high-end equestrian estates as a result.

That institutional weight shows up locally, too: the Far Hills Race Meeting, a steeplechase run at Moorland Farm every third Saturday in October, traces back to the Essex Fox Hounds' 1913 "Farmers' Day Race Meeting" (itself rooted in an 1870 Montclair fox-hunting tradition) and has run continuously since 1915. It now draws roughly 50,000 spectators in a single day -- enough to swell Far Hills Borough's population to nearly 40 times its normal size, briefly making it the most populous place in Somerset County. For a horse-property buyer, this means the surrounding land isn't just zoned to tolerate horses; it sits inside a working equestrian economy with real, sustained institutional and event infrastructure behind it.

Somerset County's own preservation mechanism: the County-Direct Easement Program

Beyond the state's standard Farmland Preservation Program (administered through the State Agriculture Development Committee, or SADC), Somerset County has developed its own County-Direct Easement Program, run by the Somerset County Agriculture Development Board (SCADB) specifically to preserve farms that may not meet the state program's eligibility criteria but that the county judges vital to its local foodshed and agricultural economy -- a genuinely county-specific tool beyond what's available in most other New Jersey counties' preservation programs. Recent, concrete examples in the Somerset Hills include a 35-acre farm in Peapack-Gladstone preserved via a roughly $1.5 million county-purchased agricultural easement, and nearly 125 acres along the Black River in Bedminster preserved with New Jersey Conservation Foundation as a partner.

State preservation data (covering 1985 through fiscal year 2020) shows Bedminster with 28 farms and 2,032 preserved acres, and Peapack-Gladstone with 1 farm and 50 preserved acres -- modest compared to the sprawling preserved-acreage totals in Monmouth County's Upper Freehold or Colts Neck, but concentrated in genuinely high-value Somerset Hills real estate, where preservation status has an outsized effect on what a specific parcel can become. As with any New Jersey preserved farm, a recorded deed of easement runs with the land regardless of ownership, permanently restricting non-agricultural development while still allowing the farm to be bought, sold, financed, and actively used, including for equestrian purposes.

What to check before buying horse property in the Somerset Hills

First, confirm the specific municipal zoning ordinance's treatment of equestrian use for the exact parcel -- Bedminster's zoning ordinance, for instance, permits farm uses including equestrian ownership, boarding, and training either on a single lot or by lease or easement across several lots, a structure worth understanding if you're assembling pasture or riding-ring acreage across adjoining parcels rather than buying one large tract outright. Confirm the current ordinance and any equestrian-specific conditions directly with the township zoning office rather than assuming a generic large-lot residential standard applies.

Second, ask the Somerset County Agriculture Development Board whether the parcel carries an existing preserved-farmland easement -- either through the standard state SADC program or the county's own County-Direct Easement Program -- and if so, request the specific easement terms, since permitted secondary structures (a second dwelling, additional barns, an indoor arena) can vary easement to easement. Third, if the parcel sits in the county's north near Bedminster, Bernardsville, or Peapack-Gladstone, separately check whether it falls inside the mapped Highlands Region (Somerset's Highlands footprint is real but comparatively modest and mostly Planning-Area, concentrated in this same area) -- and confirm septic feasibility directly with the Somerset County Department of Health, which centrally handles septic design review and permeability testing for the whole county, since a working horse farm with a residence, barn, and staff housing can carry real septic-capacity questions worth resolving before, not after, a purchase.

Horse Property in Somerset County, New Jersey: The Somerset Hills

A nationally significant equestrian corridor, not just horse-friendly zoning

Somerset County's own preservation mechanism: the County-Direct Easement Program

What to check before buying horse property in the Somerset Hills

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