Rock Manor Avenue, Wilmington, Delaware

Rule number one when you put a house on the market: neutralize everything to make it appealing to a wide range of buyers. Actually, rule number one is you must disclose any known defects or problems, but that's not as entertaining for a blog post.

While this stately 1913 house looks neutral from the outside, the inside is anything but. I'm glad it's not, though. We get a lot more re-decorating cues from the colorful tiles and tidbits that are still there.

It begins in the vestibule with tile and tile-like murals and leaded glass panels:

The painting above the door is a copy of a circa 1889 chromolithograph titled "Old Cronies." It may seem an unusual decor choice, but for many years the home belonged to a prominent Delaware judge and Attorney General. It probably held some significance for him.

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The home is full of personal details like that, including these living room murals of horseback riders -- most likely the judge and his wife.

Those murals give us color and style cues to add new furniture and a rug, like this design:

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We can also take the Tiffany blue of the dining room...

as inspiration to make it more of a jewel box, like this:

Quick photoshop to see if it works, and I think it does:

{Libby Cameron}

The listing says that the main floor rooms have Moravian Tile Works tiles accenting the fireplaces. I haven't noticed any. This picture of the den pretty much confirms that unless they're talking about the hearths, the tiles have been removed.

For fun, I put some Moravian tiles back in place, just so we can imagine the pretty effect it had:

The kitchen is one room where the pretty wall effect is still in place:

It has a magnificent focal point of Krystallus Quartzite, and a little individuality with the gingko leaf chandelier.

The sunporch meanwhile, has too many focal points. The blue walls and white shelves compete with the stone wall.

If it were mine, I'd switch the colors and make the room blend better with the rest of the house, like this:

{Libby Cameron}

That goes for you too, bathroom.

{Esslinger Design Company}

The sunroom leads to an outside deck:

Let's go up to the second floor.

Like the listing does, we'll start with the show-stopper of a sunroom there:

It connects to the stair landing via these built-in benches and beautiful stained-glass windows:

There are three bedrooms and one bathroom on the second floor.  The house has 4,150 square feet.

They used some Yankee ingenuity for venting the dryer.

The third floor has two more bedrooms and another bathroom.

     

Remember that rule about disclosing problems? Well, here's a potential one:

The house overlooks Delaware Route 202. It is also being sold "as-is"-- and the realtor is "happy to take you through this historic home and explain the new roadway and the 3 homes to be built." 

That said, the property still includes almost one acre, and is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, or at least it was at one time:

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Maybe that has something to do with who used to own the land -- none other than industrialist Alfred DuPont, of the DuPont family.

{1930 map source/I made this one myself!}

Even though the house was built in 1913, DuPont is shown as owning the land in 1930. (He died in 1935.) That doesn't mean he lived there -- the DuPont family owned quite a bit of land in Wilmington. Besides that, he lived here:

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This is Swamp Hall. After a divorce in 1906, he had it razed, and built an even grander home. 

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This is Nemours, built in 1910. As you might expect from someone who named his home Swamp Hall, DuPont was a pretty interesting guy. He definitely wasn't one to follow the rules, and he also didn't worry about neutralizing his home for future owners. 

Although I would have liked to have found more about the Rock Manor house, I'm really glad that it still is telling its story, too.

The listing is here.