Winterthur Museum - Delaware

Address:Route 52 (Kennett Pike)
Winterthur, Delaware
Tel: (800) 448-3883

Become immersed in another place and time at the Winterthur Museum! This world-class museum, with its unsurpassed collection of antiques and Americana, is the ideal place to rediscover America's heritage.

Winterthur Museum's founder, Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), collected antiques to furnish his elegant country home. Today, visitors can see the inspiring architectural surroundings of the Period Rooms, and magnificent vignettes of antiques he gathered. From a collection of more than 85,000 objects made or used in America between 1640 and 1860, Winterthur Museum curators have crafted displays that focus on specific media from historic clothing and craftsmen's tools to exquisite metalworks, ceramics, and paintings. The Museum Country Estate is also a majestic place to walk, stroll, and entertain the kids, who will love the Faerie Cottage, Acorn Tearoom, and Tulip Tree House in the Enchanted woods, as well as the Forbidden Fairy Ring, a circle of mushrooms that send out a gentle spray of mist when someone steps into it.

The Troll Bridge and lots of little canals and statues will delight children of all ages and there are paths to stroll along within the gardens, as well as a 30 minute tram ride tour of the grounds. For the especially curious, the Once upon a Family tour introduces children to the Winterthur Estate as the home of the du Pont family, and while exploring the mansion and grounds of the family home, participants learn from a guide about what it was like to live there at the turn of the century.

The Cappuccino Cafe offers hot drinks, cold beverages, salads, soups, sandwiches, and baked goods, or enjoy a relaxing lunch at the Garden Cafeteria in the Visitor Center which serves a full salad bar, soups, several hot dishes, snacks, desserts, sandwiches and specialty drinks. Visitors can also pack a basket at home and enjoy their lunch at the picnic house (inside or outside) or at an outside dining area at the galleries.

The Winterthur Museum is on Rte. 52 in Delaware, 6 miles (9.6 km) northwest of Wilmington, 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Philadelphia, Pa., and 5 miles (8 km) south of U.S. Rte. 1.

Winterthur, an American country estate, is the former home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), an avid antiques collector and horticulturist. In the early 20th century, H. F. du Pont and his father, Henry Algernon du Pont, designed Winterthur in the spirit of 18th- and19th-century European country houses.