What is Du Pont's Winterthur Mansion?

While you might be familiar with the chemical  giant Du Pont, how much do you know about how   its founding family lived? Hi everyone,  ken here, welcome to this house. Today we   are exploring Winterthur in Delaware, the  family home of the Du Ponts. Make sure to   hit that subscribe button so you never  miss an exciting episode of this house. Henry Francis Du Pont was born into wealth.  His father was a senator who had purchased   the estate named Winterthur from his family  who had grown their wealth through gun powder   and later chemical production. Though  the home had started as a 12 room house,   his father expanded it to include 30  rooms. Henry loved growing up here,   so it was no surprise that when he graduated from  Harvard with a degree in horticulture, he returned   home. Henry yearned for a simple life, wanting  to connect with nature. He identified himself   as a farmer and began raising dairy cattle and  manicuring the gardens of the 2,500 acre estate. Upon his father’s death in 1926, Henry inherited a  massive fortune as the only surviving Du Pont son. Over the next 6 years, as the great depression  saw many wealthy families fall, Henry Du Pont saw   great fortune. He expanded his family house from  30 rooms to 175 rooms. All together, the colossal   mansion boasted 96, 582 square feet making it the  5th largest historic house in the United States. He did so with the intention of creating a  museum to be enjoyed by future generations.   With the market bottoming out, people were having  massive estate sales to make ends meet. So henry   hit the road with his private chauffeur and  took advantage of as many sales as he could.   He would visit homes and purchase entire rooms,  including wall panels and other architectural   salvage as well as family heirlooms. But there was  something in particular he really sought after,   he wanted to commemorate early Americana  specifically dating from the 1640s to   the 1840s. All together, he purchased  over 89,000 antiques on these trips. Returning home to Winterthur he hired  the nation’s leading interior designer,   Henry Davis Sleeper to help him configure  period appropriate displays for each room. Walking inside, you would be greeted by a floating   staircase spiraling through an  oculus towards the top floor. Meandering through the maze of rooms, you  would come across many wonders including   the Chinese Room which Sleeper had  designed to be very similar to his   own at Beauport which we covered in  our previous video. The wallpaper   dated back to as early as 1775 and had  been installed with the uptmost care. Other rooms contained vintage wallpaper such   as Les Vues D’italie which dated  back to the mid 19th century. The living room was finished  out with painted wood panels   offset by primary colors used  in the upholstery and textiles. The dining room’s wall panels were all  painted white with the only intricate   carvings belonging to the fireplace’s  upper mantle. Tucked into the walls were   display cases which were left open for  guests to admire the porcelains within. The family dining room was more humble with simple   pine boards run vertically on the  walls with furniture reminiscent   of that which would have been found in  the American frontier a century earlier. Some rooms were more finished out with  pilasters flanking built in cabinets   with wainscotting running below fabric wallpapers. While some were entirely unadorned, featuring  white walls and painted millwork with the only   interest to the spaces being provided  by the antiques which decorated them. But given the goal of creating a museum to  commemorate American called for great variety   in the interior’s design. While exploring  the mansion you could end up on a cobblestone   street with colonial and Italianate  storefronts flaunting window displays. You could then explore each store to see   Henry’s collections in a mockup  of their original environments. The mansion continued on and on offering  a variety of interesting and unique rooms   to recreate the various aesthetics of  the United States throughout its ages. Even the bedrooms, which  he and his family occupied,   were designed to be museum ready offering  a glimpse into the early influences of the   country’s diverse cultures in the  melting pot of American design. Perhaps no collection was as complete as Henry’s  library where it was said that 87,000 books were   stored with an additional 500,000 manuscripts  rivaling university archives across the world. In 1941, he opened the house to the  public for the first time. He made   announcements and limited the first  tours to only a handful of guests   who were required to send him a  formal letter requesting a tour. 10 years later, in 1951, the family moved out of  Winterthur and into a much smaller home. That same   year, they fully opened Winterthur to the public  as a museum and added a garden experience the   following year to show off the landscaping which  Henry had personally been working on for decades. The museum brought Henry national attention,  so much so that First Lady Jackie Kennedy   brough Henry to the White House to oversee  its renovations in the 1960s. Shortly after,   in 1969, Henry passed away, but thankfully his  dream for a house museum lived on. Winterthur   continues to be open to the public with  over 900 acres of grounds to explore. If you have ever visited, I would love to  hear about your experience down below in   the comments section. And while you’re there,  make sure to hit that subscribe button so you   never miss an exciting episode of this house. I  would also like to say a huge thank you to our   This House Supporters whose names you can see on  this screen. Your continued support helps to make   these videos possible. If you would like to show  your support and see your name on this screen,   consider joining our membership program  today. I’ll see you next time on this house!

Channel: This House

Views: 191,065

Keywords: du pont, winterthur, du pont family, henry du pont, Henry Sleeper, mansion, gilded age, the gilded age, history documentary, the gilded age hbo, history, history shows, historical photos, famous, interesting, original, this house, what is this, what is This, history tour, documentary, documentaries, architecture, historic architecture, american castle, us history, architectural history, deleware, dupont, delaware

Id: a2GvHBZR6YU

Length: 5min 50sec (350 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 27 2022