Nemours Estate was created from Alfred I. duPont's wish that his mansion, gardens, and grounds be maintained for the pleasure and benefit of the public. The estate includes a group tour center; the Western Lodge, once the gatekeeper's residence, with a gate-opening wheel Alfred I. duPont designed; the Temple of Love with a bronze statue of Diana the Huntress; Oriental Gardens with a Chinese-style gate and stone arch bridge; Sunken Gardens designed by Alfred I. duPont's only son, architect Alfred Victor duPont; a colonnade memorial honoring Alfred I. duPont's great-great-grandfather and great-grandfather; a maze garden surrounding the bronze and gold leaf statue of Achievement; a reflecting pool used by the duPonts for swimming and boating under The Four Seasons; the Vista, or Long Walk, framed by elk statues, fountain urns, and tree-lined allées; Russian Gates forged in France that once stood outside a palace owned by the Empress of Russia; eighteenth-century English Gates once used at Wimbledon Manor outside London; the mansion, designed and built between 1909 and 1910, with 77 rooms in 47,000 square feet; a laundry serving the household and domestic staff; a water tower holding 18,000 gallons and chiming the hours; a chauffeur's garage housing vintage automobiles, a pony cart, and a motor launch used by the duPonts; woodland trails leading through boulder-strewn hillsides to natural springs and concrete pools; farm equipment used in the estate's orchards, produce gardens, and nurseries; Southern Gardens arranged in three rooms called Boxwood, Four Borders, and Frog Pond; a new pump house with an engine bearing the plaque "Made by Alfred I duPont 1931"; an old pump house that formerly furnished water to the gardens; lower ponds that provide habitat for ducks, herons, songbirds, frogs, and turtles; Wren's Nest, a mail-order structure built in 1915 and expanded in 1918 for use as a children's playhouse and schoolroom; and a rock garden along a stream linking a series of ponds.

Photo: Devry Becker Jones (CC0)

Photo: Devry Becker Jones (CC0)

Photo: Devry Becker Jones (CC0)