A Portrait of Alfred I. duPont's Home

One of America's greatest houses, the unequaled home of Gilded Age philanthropist Alfred I. duPont, has been newly restored to national acclaim. Nemours Mansion and Gardens is the 222-acre estate and onetime home of Alfred I. duPont-photographer, manufacturer, musician, politician, banker, inventor, suffragist, newspaper owner, businessman, and philanthropist. Designed and built in the Louis XIV style in 1909 by Carrere and Hastings, it is one of the largest and most opulent houses in America, to be compared only with the likes of the Biltmore Estate, the White House, The Breakers, and Hearst Castle. With seventy rooms spread out over 46,000 square feet, it is capacious, yet an intimacy of detail and graciousness of proportion give the visitor a feeling of serenity and a special sense of place that is unique to Nemours. Newly and painstakingly renovated, the house-now a museum that can be toured-glows with the finish of its original splendor, captured at long last in a volume that sumptuously reflects the magnificence of a masterpiece.