Nemours Mansion and Gardens

The Nemours Mansion and Gardens is a country estate with a formal French-styled 17th-century garden and a French neoclassical mansion in Wilmington, Delaware. It was built to resemble a French château and has 105 rooms on five floors occupy nearly 47,000 sq ft (4,400 m2).

Nemours was created by Alfred I. du Pont in 1909–10 and was named for the north-central French town of Nemours, which was affiliated with his great-great-grandfather, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours.

The mansion is in the Louis XVI style of French architecture and contains 18th-century French furniture and a collection of antiques, works of art, and tapestries.

Artworks range from 16th-century religious works to paintings by the European masters to works by American artists.

The estate has the most developed and most extensive French formal garden styled landscape park in America. The design is patterned after the gardens of Versailles.

The Maze Garden – and a central statue of Achievement, by Henri Crenier, atop a base with images of Triton and Neptune’s face

Highlights of the Nemours Mansion and Gardens

Louis XVI Musical Clock, circa 1785
A French clock made for Marie Antoinette
A chair from the 1937 coronation of King George VI
A chair from Independence Hall
The Jardin à la française (formal French garden)
Garden landscaping with fountains, pools, a carillon tower, statuary, and a pavilion surrounded by woodlands
Temple of Love – in classical style, with a life-sized statue of Diana (1780) by Jean-Antoine Houdon.
The Boxwood Garden
The Colonnade
The Maze Garden
The Reflecting Pool with 157 jets
The Sunken Gardens