One place the three of us all wanted to see was the Nemours Estate, built by Alfred DuPont and situated on 300 beautifully landscaped acres. The house itself is 47,000 square feet and has 20 bathrooms. As we approached the iron gates, we knew this would be an interesting tour.
The mansion itself, while massive, isn't ostentatious on the outside. The rather plain white and gray exterior doesn't hint at the 105 luxurious rooms inside. The estate was named after Alfred DuPont's great-great grandfather, Pierre Samuel DuPont de Nemours.
Turning around at the front steps of the house, this was our view!
Heidi and Lisa posed by one of the huge gates on the grounds. At this point in time, our legs and feet were still fresh. At the end of the tour, we calculated that we had walked for 3 and a half hours. That's a lot of steps!
As we entered the house,we went up the impressive staircase, and gazed at the beautiful chandelier and stained glass window.
The chandelier below was located in Denise DuPont's bedroom. She was a French war orphan and adopted as an infant by Alicia and Alfred. The delicate glass flowers were hand blown, and there is even a matching mirror and lamp. Opulent, to say the least.
There are many formal gardens located on all sides of the house, so if you were a guest, you were guaranteed a great view from your bedroom window.
As we passed through the rooms, various docents provided additional tidbits of information. One lady told us to look closer at this chandelier. Between the lights are perfume bottles. As the lights warmed up, the perfume would give off a scent! My gosh, how does one even think about that ahead of time? If you look close, you can see the bottles with the stoppers on them.
This was the cooking part of the kitchen. There was a separate room for the ice boxes (later turned into refrigerators) and 27 sets of dinnerware. Each meal was served on a different set of plates when guests were present. Glad I wasn't a servant that had to do the dishes for them! By the time they had cleaned off the plates from the table, I'm sure they were already getting pots and pans dirty for the next meal.
Other fun facts: the house included a bowling alley that had both duck pins and bowling pins, an exercise room with it's own showers, a movie room, a library and a billiards room. In addition, there was a cold storage room used for their mink coats. That room had a iron gate secured with a padlock.
After touring the house, we strolled out into the gardens, admiring the fountains and pools, thankful that the day was absolutely gorgeous.
As we walked back to the car, our feet were tired, but our hearts were happy. What a wonderful day that the Lord had blessed us with!
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