Current:Home > ScamsHow a secret Delaware garden suddenly reemerged during the pandemic -Infinite Edge Capital
How a secret Delaware garden suddenly reemerged during the pandemic
View
Date:2025-04-14 11:28:52
Wilmington, Delaware — If you like a reclamation project, you'll love what Paul Orpello is overseeing at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware.
It's the site of the original DuPont factory, where a great American fortune was made in gunpowder in the 19th century.
"There's no other post-industrial site reimagined in this way," Orpello, the museum's director of gardens and horticulture, told CBS News.
"There's only one in the world," he adds.
It's also where a DuPont heiress, Louise Crowninshield, created a garden in the 1920s.
"It looked like you were walking through an Italian villa with English-style plantings adorning it," Orpello said of the garden.
Crowninshield died in 1958, and the garden disappeared over the ensuing decades.
"Everything that she worked to preserve, this somehow got lost to time," Orpello said.
In 2018, Orpello was hired to reclaim the Crowninshield Garden, but the COVID-19 pandemic hit before he could really get going on the project. However, that's when he found out he didn't exactly need to, because as the world shut down in the spring of 2020, azaleas, tulips and peonies dormant for more than a half-century suddenly started to bloom.
"So much emotion at certain points," Orpello said of the discovery. "Just falling down on my knees and trying to understand."
"I don't know that I could or that I still can't (make sense of it)," he explained. "Just that it's magic."
Orpello wants to fully restore the garden to how Crowninshield had it, with pools she set in the factory-building footprints and a terrace with a mosaic of a Pegasus recently discovered under the dirt.
"There was about a foot of compost from everything growing and dying," Orpello said. "And then that was gently broomed off. A couple of rains later, Pegasus showed up."
Orpello estimates it will cost about $30 million to finish the restoration, but he says he is not focused on the money but on the message.
"It's such a great story of resiliency," Orpello said. "And this whole entire hillside erupted back into life when the world had shut down."
- In:
- COVID-19 Pandemic
- Delaware
Jim Axelrod is the chief investigative correspondent and senior national correspondent for CBS News, reporting for "CBS This Morning," "CBS Evening News," "CBS Sunday Morning" and other CBS News broadcasts.
TwitterveryGood! (5415)
Related
- Former longtime South Carolina congressman John Spratt dies at 82
- Farmers in 6 Vermont counties affected by flooding can apply for emergency loans
- Judge orders amendment to bring casino to Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks to go before voters
- Tom Hanks Warns Fans Not to Be Swindled by Wonder Drug Scheme Using His Image
- At site of suspected mass killings, Syrians recall horrors, hope for answers
- Hello Kitty's Not a Cat, Goofy's Not a Dog. You'll Be Shocked By These Facts About Your Fave Characters
- Watch Travis Kelce annoy Christian McCaffrey in new Lowe's ad ahead of NFL season
- Korban Best, known for his dancing, sprints to silver in Paralympic debut
- The Best Stocking Stuffers Under $25
- Gun Violence On Oahu’s West Side Has Parents And Teachers Worried About School Safety
Ranking
- Retirement planning: 3 crucial moves everyone should make before 2025
- Michigan Supreme Court says businesses can’t get state compensation over pandemic closures
- Runners are used to toughing it out. A warming climate can make that deadly
- Step Inside Jana Duggar and Husband Stephen Wissmann’s Fixer Upper Home
- Are Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp down? Meta says most issues resolved after outages
- ‘Dancing With the Stars’ pro Artem Chigvintsev arrested on domestic violence charge in California
- Trump film ‘The Apprentice’ finds distributor, will open before election
- Leah Remini announces split from husband Angelo Pagán after 21 years
Recommendation
Friday the 13th luck? 13 past Mega Millions jackpot wins in December. See top 10 lottery prizes
2 women charged in Lululemon shoplifting scheme in Minneapolis
When are the 2024 MTV VMAs? Date, time, performers and how to vote for your faves
Michigan's Sherrone Moore among college football coaches without a signed contract
Behind on your annual reading goal? Books under 200 pages to read before 2024 ends
Chrysler's great-grandson wants to buy, rebuild Chrysler, Dodge brand; Stellantis responds
NHL player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother have died after their bicycles were hit by a car
Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge shows price pressures easing as rate cuts near