With 77-Rooms And 200 Acres, Nemours Estate Is A Must-See
Story by Melissa Jacobs. Lead photo by Main Line Tonight.
Nemours Estate … You’ve been, right? You certainly know the name Nemours, which is synonymous with pediatric healthcare in the Delaware Valley. And you likely know that Nemours is connected to the duPont family, which is connected to Hotel Du Pont, Longwood Gardens, Winterthur and the Hagley Museum. You’ve probably visited at least one of those places. But have you been to Nemours Estate? Perhaps not.
Spread over 200 acres in Wilmington, Nemours Estate holds a 77-room, French neoclassical mansion, a chauffeur’s garage with vintage automobiles, and gardens filled with all manner of flower and fauna, meadows and woodlands, plus fountains, statuary, and plenty of room to roam and dream.
The house and gardens are open for tours Tuesdays – Sundays from April 1 – Dec. 30. Day-long passes are $23 with discounts for seniors, kids, students and active military. There’s a great gift shop, but no café, so DIY picnicking is encouraged. Estate-sponsored activities like painting workshops, and yoga fill an event calendar, as do Third Thursdays, which include discounted admission, live music, food trucks, beer and wine.
Even with all those activities, Nemours Estate retains its allure as a hidden gem. That’s a mixed blessing, explained Jean Hershner, vice president and executive director of Nemours Estate. The professional staff and many volunteers want to share the joys of Nemours Estate to fulfill the wishes of Mrs. duPont. (More on her in a minute.)
When the estate opened for tours in 1977, it had limited hours and reservations were required. That changed in 2015 when Hershner’s predecessor created a more open door policy, something she expanded upon after taking the helm in 2021. “We’ve shifted from a museum mentality to one of hosting people in the house,” Hershner explained. “That’s why we don’t have traditional museum exhibits or many roped off areas. It’s also why we have interpreters in different rooms who help tell the house’s story.”
And it’s quite a story. Speak with one of the house’s highly trained docents or take the wonderful bus tour of the grounds and you’ll hear that the estate was built in 1910 by Carrère and Hastings, two of the most famous architects of the Gilded Age, as a home for Alfred I. duPont and his beloved second wife, Alicia Heyward Bradford.
Following her untimely death in 1920, A.I. married Jessie Ball, who became the third and final Mrs. A.I. duPont. By all accounts, A.I. and Jessie had a wonderful life together, no doubt helped by Mr. duPont overcoming the business struggles of his early years. Thanks to savvy investments in Florida real estate and banking, he amassed a fortune reported to be $26 million when he died in 1935.
Mrs. duPont continued to live in the mansion until her death in 1970, but the house’s interior style was never modernized. (Thank goodness.) Indeed, stepping into Nemours Estate is like stepping back in time to the turn of the 20th century – and into France. Nemours Estate’s décor is distinctly French, a deliberate reference to the duPont family’s ancestral roots and connections to French royalty, philosophers and artists.
Three floors are open to the public and, from the basement’s wood-paneled bowling alley and billiards room to the sun-drenched conservatory and formal dining room table set with Wedgwood china, plus Mrs. duPont’s generous bedroom suite and its spa-like bathroom, there’s ample, fascinating evidence of how the duPonts lived and entertained at Nemours Estate. From the tapestries to the parquet floors, shelves lined with bound books and family pictures discretely positioned through the house, everything is so perfectly preserved that it looks as though the duPonts still live there.
Of course, the classic cars in the chauffer’s garage are in tip-top shape. The congenial bus tour operator pointed out a building with laundry facilities that connects to the main house via an underground tunnel so servants didn’t have to worry that inclement weather would soil just-cleaned pieces. The 20-minute bus tour is a great way to see the expansive property and hear stories about the Russian gates that front the house, the lake and reflecting pool in which duPonts fished and rowed boats, and the Temple Of Love, which, while a gorgeous statue of the goddess Diana, is far tamer than its name implies.
If you go – and you should – plan to spend at least half a day touring the house and exploring its gardens and woodlands. There’s plenty of parking, too. Take the kids, your sweetie or your friends and enjoy all of the Gilded Age glamour that Nemours Estate has to offer.
Nemours Estate is located at 1600 Rockland Road, Wilmington, DE, adjacent to Nemours Children’s Hospital. For more information, visit the Nemours Estate website.
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