Riverfields

Achelis was President of the American Hard Rubber Company, established by his father-in-law, Friedrich Wilhelm Koenig (1826-1905), of the Konig Mansion at College Point, New York. Achelis and his equally successful brother-in-law, George Frederick Vietor (1839-1910), both built country estates at Rumson.

Depending on which source you read, the Achelis' purchased a 28-acre dairy farm in 1888 from either Herbert Stanley Renton (1854-1939), of New York, or Kathrine J. Hamilton. Either way, the following year they employed the noted architect Henry Hudson Holly (1834-1892) who in collaboration with contractor, Charles L. Walters, built the Achelis' a fitting home for their country retreat.

The Achelis home was a large, red brick, Queen Anne-style mansion, noted for it's asymmetrical layout over several floors that incorporated gables, dormers, wide porches and towers. They expanded the estate to 49-acres, so that it ran down to the shore of the Shrewsbury River.

In 1926, two years after Achelis' death, it changed hands and was remodeled in 1928 by Red Bank architect Ernest A. Arend into a Colonial-Revival Style and a forerunner of the emerging Williamsburg look. It was sold again in 1931 to Nicholas Gouverneur Rutgers Jr. (1888-1951), and his wife Helen Aitken Johnson (1892-1961), daughter of one of the co-founders of the pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson.

In 1941, Riverfields became the home Count Anatol Buxhoevden (1905-1983), who was joined there from 1959 by his English wife, Roberta Montague Rose (1907-2002), daughter of the banker Archibald Adolph Rose and Francis Lake Montague. The Countess, known as "Bobby" was the widow of publisher Thomas Leaman (1904-1951). In 2016, Rivefields was on the market again for $7 million.