![]() ![]() Swamp Hall again became the scene of discord a decade later, when Alfred, now employed by the firm, brought his bride, Bessie Gardner, there to live. The defiant children, however-armed with a rolling pin, an axe, and a shotgun-managed to dissuade their elders from this course of action and were allowed, with some familial supervision, to remain in the house. In 1877, she died during one of these seizures, and several weeks later, her husband succumbed to tuberculosis, leaving the 13-year-old Alfred and his four siblings at the mercy of their relatives, who determined that they should vacate Swamp Hall. Life at Swamp Hall, Alfred’s childhood home, was as melancholy as the house’s name: His mother, never emotionally strong, experienced a debilitating attack of postpartum depression after giving birth to her fifth child and, when not confined to an asylum, was subject to convulsive fits. Rather than embrace this peaceful pursuit, Pierre Samuel’s son built a gunpowder mill, which became the basis for the family’s vast wealth. du Pont de Nemours and Company) and Charlotte Henderson du Pont, he was raised on Delaware’s Brandywine River, where his ancestor Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a French emigrant, had envisioned an agrarian utopia. The eldest son of Eleuthère-Irénée du Pont II (a partner in E.I. Indeed, much like the French palaces that inspired it, Nemours would become something of a prison for the couple that dwelled there.įor all his worldly resources, Alfred had never really had a stable home. Yet despite the inviting accommodations to be found within the home, its meticulously manicured acreage was rather inhospitably enclosed by a 9-foot stone wall topped with shards of glass at the time that its monarch took up residence with his own Marie Antoinette, the former Mrs. With five floors and more than 100 rooms, the residence resembled a smaller (though only slightly) version of the Grand Trianon at Versailles, its airy interiors sparkling with French crystal chandeliers and Louis XVI furniture. industrialists in the early 20th century. ![]() The 47,000-square-foot château that Alfred Irénée du Pont constructed from 1909 to 1910 on 300 acres outside of Wilmington, Del., remains a testament to the economic might at the disposal of U.S. Certainly, if scale were the measure of domestic tranquility, then Nemours (pictured) would have been the happiest of abodes. House, no matter how ultimate, is not necessarily a home. ![]()
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