Victoria – October 01, 2019

hile other husbands may
gift their wives with bou-
quets of fl owers or strings
of pearls, industrialist and
philanthropist Alfred I. duPont bestowed
his second wife, Alicia, with a 47,000-
square-foot mansion modeled after
Marie Antoinette’s Versailles retreat,
Petit Trianon. Designed by illustrious
New York architects Carrere and Hastings,
the late-eighteenth-century neoclassical-
style house was completed in 1910 and
christened Nemours after the northern
French town of Alfred’s ancestors. Sadly,
Alicia passed away a decade later, but
Alfred and his third wife, Jessie, spent a
number of happy years here.
Nemours exudes opulence from
the moment one enters the reception
hall, with its painted coffered ceilings,
black-and-white marble fl oor, and walls
constructed of local Brandywine granite,
given a sheer layer of plaster and glazed
to mimic dressed stone. A clock made
for Marie Antoinette stands beside one
gilt-trimmed arch, and a sixteenth-
century painting of Queen Elizabeth I
and her court favorites is among the
works of art displayed here. A stairway

Above right: Alfred I. duPont played

the violin, as well as this beautiful

Steinway piano, painted and gilded to

match the décor in the music room of

Nemours Estate.

victoriamag.com 38

HIDDEN TREASURES