The Most Iconic House in New Jersey Is for Sale. It Really Shouldn’t Be. (2024)

The most important building in New Jersey is on the real estate market. I speak not of Princeton’s Nassau Hall, or the underrated Newark Museum of Art. No, the four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom estate once occupied by the immortal Junior Soprano—boss of the DiMeo crime family on The Sopranos—can be yours for only $579,000. It’s located in Essex County, a stone’s throw from Branch Brook Park, which remains one of Jersey’s finest institutions. Wake up, grab yourself a gun, and get that bid in.

The house is the site of one of the most famous Sopranos episodes of all time, where a rapidly deteriorating Uncle Junior imagines that he has a stash of cash that he buried in the backyard 30 years prior. He convinces Tony to dig up his lawn looking for the loot, which never turns up. At the end of the hour, Junior—who is now clearly sundowning—mistakes Tony for an old rival mobster and shoots him in the gut, setting up the wildly hallucinogenic final season of the show. Imagine resting your head amid the ghosts of introverted and chemically depressed fictional gangsters! No price is too high.

For what it’s worth, the last time the house changed hands was in 2019 for $420,000. Seems kind of low? I guess even the mob is feeling the squeeze of the cost of living.

You could do a lot worse than living life like Junior. The New York Post, which first flagged the story, noted that the house comes with a two-car garage, a recently redone kitchen, and a den—which is the sort of perk that gets every inveterate Zillow sicko breathing heavily. I do not have a great read on the real estate environment of outer Newark, so there’s a good chance the house will be snatched up instantly. However, I do think the state of New Jersey is sitting on a great opportunity here. What if Junior’s manor—and every other house that ever appeared on the Sopranos—was turned into public property? Maybe even a museum? Sopranos State Park would immediately become the biggest tourism draw within municipal lines. They’d be printing money.

Tony’s house, also located in Essex County, is currently off-market and valued at around $2 million. Satin Dolls, the venue used for the show’s legendary Bada Bing! strip club, is mired in so many Byzantine legal disputes that, quite frankly, the DiMeo family would be proud. And surprisingly, nobody knows where Dr. Melfi’s office is because the exterior of the building is never shown onscreen, which you could argue is a smart way to demonstrate the bifurcation of Tony’s life in, and out, of therapy. (Never underestimate David Chase.) What I’m saying here is that the state of New Jersey would obviously need to get a little creative with its eminent domain policies to absorb the land belonging to the extended Soprano family, but imagine the possibilities if they did. Are you saying you wouldn’t want to ponder the ducks in Tony’s pool? Perhaps while recalling the manifold stresses of modern life? I’d be there with bells on.

Frankly, this should be the solution for all nondescript houses, apartments, and bars that have inadvertently become famous due to the power of television. After a show has been off for 10 years, the property ought to fall into public access. I mean, consider the hellish alternative. Do you think the folks who happen to share a block with Carrie Bradshaw’s building enjoy the fact that a ceaseless gaggle of tourists morph their quiet street into Disneyland so they may indulge in an extremely outdated New York City fantasy? (It’s not even located on the Upper East Side, by the way.) Do you ever consider how unlucky you would be to live next to the Friends apartment? A fate worse than death!

So good luck to the family that moves into the former Junior residence. Much like the current occupant of Tony’s house, I’m sure you’ll enjoy fending off a truckload of bemused thirtysomethings on the hunt for an engagement-rich Instagram story every day. Hopefully a day comes soon where we can tax the gawkers, and justice will be served.