Live like a du Pont

Visitors to Winterthur who have dreamed of living like Henry Francis du Pont will soon be able to get their wish.

They’ll be on their own to supply the sprawling country estate, but thanks to a collaboration between Winterthur and Connor Homes, they’ll be able to buy a house that could pass for Henry’s.

Winterthur has granted a license to Connor Homes which allows the company to produce a museum-endorsed line of houses that reflect the elegance of Henry du Pont’s former home.

It’s an exciting project for Michael Connor, who founded the Middlebury, Vt., manufacturer of mill-built historic replica homes 40 years ago.

“We want to understand the vernacular of some of the homes that are connected with Winterthur,” he said, flipping through binders of old photos in the museum’s library.

They plan to roll out three to five Winterthur home plans later this summer, he said. Connor and a team studied the exterior and interior features of du Pont’s home and the houses he gleaned ideas from, then they’ll pick and choose the best features to incorporate into their pre-fabricated homes.

Builders have largely abandoned the elegant exterior cornice work and dental molding featured on historic homes like du Pont’s because it would take a crew of onsite contractors days to perform the delicate work, Connor said.

But in his factory, a crew of carpenters working on a tabletop and using specialized equipment can complete the cornice work quickly, he said.

“We can actually build much of the historical architectural details that many people thought couldn’t be built anymore,” he said.

And at Winterthur, there is literally a wealth of details to choose from.

The museum contains rooms built from homes in all of the 13 colonies, Connor said, and he may choose to focus on one of those rooms and build a house around it.

“This is an opportunity to say, here’s the room, now take a look at the house it came from,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges of designing the homes will likely be balancing historic recreation with the wants and needs of modern homebuyers, he said.

“People may admire museum houses, but they often don’t want to live in them.”

The houses will look historic, but they will still have modern floor plans, he said. A kitchen, for example, will incorporate modern appliances, though the design will be softened so they don’t look too out of place, he said.

Interested homebuyers have already started contacting the company, he said, even though the plans won’t be ready for marketing until the fall. Connor builds 50 homes a year and the houses typically sell for $160 to $225 a square foot, he said.

For Winterthur, which launched its licensing program in 1982 and now licenses to 25 companies, the line of homes will be a first, said Kristin DeMesse, director of Winterthur Licensed Products.

It might even open up additional opportunities for licensing, she said, like a line of Winterthur-approved paint for the walls.

“Having his line of wonderful houses gives us the opportunity to tell a different part of Winterthur’s story, and maybe tell it in a different part of the country,” she said.