The Two Natirars: What Peapack-Gladstone Residents Can Actually Walk Into This Fall

"Open to the public Monday – Thursday with a reserved 60-minute service or more. Exclusive to resort guests and The Natirar Club members Friday – Sunday."

That line comes from the posted rules for Spa Pendry at Pendry Natirar. It explains Natirar better than any map does. If you live in Peapack-Gladstone, you can use quite a lot of the estate. Which parts depend on the day, whether you booked ahead, and which side of Natirar you're on.

The free side, the Somerset County park, is about to get easier to reach on foot. The borough has accepted a county grant for a pedestrian bridge over Peapack Brook. In September it approved the first site work.

One Estate, Two Sets of Rules

Natirar covers 411 acres, and 247 of them sit inside Peapack-Gladstone. The rest are in Far Hills and Bedminster. The Somerset County Park Commission describes it as the former estate of Kate Macy Ladd and Walter Graeme Ladd, crossed by the North Branch of the Raritan River and by Peapack Brook.

Pendry Hotels & Resorts announced the resort's opening on October 25, 2024, built around the restored 1912 mansion. That puts its second anniversary on the same Sunday as this year's PG Halloween Parade. Two years in, the resort's own pages lay out a clear split between what neighbors can book and what is kept for overnight guests and members of The Natirar Club.

The Week, Door by Door

Here is how the posted hours line up across a week for someone who lives in town and isn't staying overnight.

The two restaurants split the week between them. Ninety Acres is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, and those are the nights Ladd's Tavern serves dinner. On Wednesday and Thursday it flips, with Ninety Acres open for dinner and Ladd's done after lunch. Friday through Sunday are the only nights both restaurants serve dinner.

Ladd's also covers the daytime. Breakfast runs daily from 7:00 to 11:00 a.m., lunch daily from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and brunch on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Both restaurants take reservations through links on their Pendry pages. Valet parking is $10, and it's free for Natirar Club members.

The spa runs on a separate calendar. Treatments are offered daily from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. A resident can book one only Monday through Thursday, and only for a service of 60 minutes or longer. So Wednesday and Thursday are the only days you could book a weekday spa service and then have dinner at Ninety Acres the same day.

The Doors That Stay Shut All Week

Some parts of the resort aren't open to the public on any day:

• The Farm. Pendry says The Farm is "open exclusively to resort guests and The Natirar Club members for farm tours, seasonal programming and events."
• The spa pool. "The spa pool is not open for public access," even during public spa hours.
• Family swim. The posted hours are Sunday through Thursday from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m., plus Friday and Saturday evenings, and they're limited to resort guests.

The Farm is the one people most often ask about, since it's the source behind the Ninety Acres menus. You can eat what it grows at dinner. You can't tour it unless you're staying there or belong to the club.

November's Open Kitchen

The Cooking School is the resort's most open door. Its page says it is "open to guests and the public for seasonal programming and events," at 200 Natirar Drive.

This fall that means Chefsgiving. Classes run on select November dates from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with titles like a Holiday Pie Workshop, Do-Ahead Thanksgiving and Knife Skills for the Holidays. Pendry lists them as open to resort guests, The Natirar Club and "the local community." Prices start at $145 per person, each date is booked separately, and part of the proceeds goes to the Somerset County Food Bank.

The resort's homepage also mentions pumpkin-patch painting, a Halloween movie night and Harvest Boozy Tea, but it gives no dates. Call before you plan around any of them.

The Free Half, and the Bridge Being Built to Reach It

The county side has no reservation system and no day-of-week rules. The Park Commission lists a 1.3-mile Great Meadow Trail and a 1.0-mile Upper Field Trail along the North Branch of the Raritan, through woods, fields and meadows. The county brochure says the park is open daily "from dawn until dusk, unless otherwise posted." That brochure also lists a 1.0-mile Lower Field Nature Trail, which doesn't appear on the county's current Natirar page. Check the trailhead signs before counting on it.

Today most people get to those trails by car. The borough wants that to change. At its April 28 meeting, the Somerset County Board of County Commissioners awarded Peapack & Gladstone a $410,000 Somerset County Trails Grant for a pedestrian bridge over Peapack Brook. As reported by Raritan Neighbors, the bridge would link the borough's trail network, both train stations, downtown and Natirar Park.

The borough's records show steady progress since then:

1. May 5, 2026: Boswell is hired to design the abutments, pier, ramp and stairs for a prefabricated bridge and to prepare the bid specs, with a fee cap of $24,000.
2. June 9, 2026: The council accepts the county grant in Resolution 92-26. The resolution describes a bridge to "connect existing trails to Natirar Park on Borough Open Space property." At the same meeting, it approves $8,500 for Boswell's soil testing at the abutment sites and authorizes bids for the bridge "at the Holland Ave Park."
3. September 8, 2026: The council approves an $8,050 proposal from Jerry Conover Excavating for site work on the "Brook Street pedestrian street bridge," including about 350 feet of silt fence and a stone tracking pad.

The June resolution places the bridge at Holland Ave Park. The September one calls it the Brook Street bridge, and it doesn't say whether both names refer to the same crossing. No construction contract, start date or completion date has been published yet. Silt fence and a tracking pad are prep work, so the September approval suggests crews will be on site soon. It doesn't mean the bridge is close to opening. The grant agreement does require the borough to keep the finished bridge open to the public.

October Dates on the Borough Side

The borough has its own October calendar, and it overlaps the estate's on a couple of dates.

The new Courts at PG are at the municipal complex on School Street. New Jersey Hills reports they were built on the smaller of the complex's two baseball fields, next to the parking lot, with two tennis courts and two pickleball courts. A July change order brought the FieldTurf USA contract to $608,407.99. The borough's Saturday adult pickleball clinics there run September 19 through October 17, so two Saturdays are left, October 10 and October 17.

October 17 is also the day of the Far Hills Race Meeting, which Pendry is promoting to its guests along with spa and dining packages. Since spa access is limited to guests and members on Saturdays anyway, a resident's race-day plan at Natirar comes down to dinner reservations and the trails.

The borough calendar lists the PG Halloween Parade for Sunday, October 25, from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. The event page doesn't give a location yet. Ninety Acres opens for Sunday dinner at 4:00 p.m., right as the parade ends.

If you're curious what better trail access near Natirar could mean for your own street, or you'd just like a local read on how projects like the Peapack Brook bridge play out, Geraldine Perez is glad to talk it through. Schedule your free, no-obligation consultation with Gerri.