Delaware
Shhh. This centuries old Wilmington garden is a ‘secret,’ but it’s open for walks, picnics
The ‘secret’ of Goodstay Gardens
UD’s garden off Pennsylvania Avenue in Wilmington is open to the public, free, year-round
- Goodstay Gardens, a historic garden in Wilmington, Delaware, is a free, public space open year-round.
- Though smaller than nearby Longwood Gardens, Nemours Estate, and Winterthur, Goodstay offers a charming and historically significant experience.
- The gardens feature a variety of flowers, trees, and seating areas, and are dog-friendly (leashed).
One of the best aspects of being a reporter in Delaware is discovering and writing about places I might never have visited otherwise.
When I was a student at the University of Delaware, I took some summer classes at UD’s Wilmington campus at 2700 Pennsylvania Ave. That was more than 30 years ago. I never gave the mid-17th-century Goodstay Center Mansion on the grounds much thought, and certainly didn’t visit the gardens. If you’re taking a summer class, your main concern is to get it over with as soon as possible, especially when it feels like everyone else is having fun at the beach.
I’ve been back to the Wilmington campus maybe once since then to give a talk at its Osher Lifelong Learning Institute about my journalism career, but that was at least a decade ago.
But for several years, I’ve been hearing about and even sometimes mentioning the “secret garden” tucked behind the Mansion.
While on an assignment in downtown Wilmington on a glorious August summer afternoon, I drove by the Colonial Revival-style mansion, behind the white fence off Pennsylvania Avenue, and, on a whim, made a U-turn.
I was finally going to check out the Goodstay Gardens that are free and open to the public daily from dawn to dusk, year-round.
It felt a little like being in a Nancy Drew mystery as I opened the gate of the white picket fence leading to the historic Tudor-style gardens behind the stone colonial house, which traces its roots back to before 1635.
What a find! Let me first apologize in advance to anyone who considers this garden “a secret,” including the lone woman I met on my stroll who told me about the frogs and butterflies she spied during her walk and then said she didn’t want anyone to know about this hidden gem.
OK, so sorry-not-sorry. I’m no gatekeeper when it comes to sharing cool places in Delaware to visit, especially a free urban oasis. I feel compelled to spill the beans. That’s why the boss man pays me.
First things first: This former du Pont family home is nowhere near as sprawling as Longwood Gardens, Pierre du Pont’s former home near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, which has nearly 200 stunning acres open to the public.
Nor is it as majestic as Nemours Estate, his cousin Alfred I. duPont’s former homestead and French-inspired formal gardens in Rockland, which makes you feel like you’ve been transported to the grounds of the Palace of Versailles.
And it’s also no Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library, Henry Francis du Pont’s former home with its 60-acre garden, designed by du Pont, that is considered among America’s best.
Please, go to all three if you’ve never been before. All are spectacular, especially in the spring and summer and during the holiday season.
While Goodstay, originally known as Green Hill, might not be so grand as Longwood, Winterthur or Nemours, it’s charming, beautifully maintained, and has deep Delaware history as one of the oldest continuously kept gardens in the state.
It’s also free, and you can bring your dog. You can’t do that at Longwood, Nemours or Winterthur.
Green Hill was the childhood home of artist Howard Pyle, the Wilmington-born illustrator and painter who taught Maxfield Parrish and N.C. Wyeth. (Want to see his works? Go to the Delaware Art Museum, founded to preserve Pyle’s art.)
Pyle had a deep affection for Green Hill and its garden and was wistfully sentimental when he reminisced about its “old-fashioned roses,” beds of tulips and “daffodillies.”
“It was such a garden as you will hardly find outside of a storybook,” Pyle wrote shortly before he died in Florence, Italy, in 1911. “I cannot remember anything but bloom and beauty, air filled with the odor of growing things, and birds singing in the shady trees in such a fashion as they do not sing nowadays.”
In 1868, Margaretta du Pont, Pierre and Alfred’s grandmother, purchased the home and renamed the estate Goodstay from the French phrase bon Sejour, which translates as “have a good stay.”
Her grandson, T. Coleman du Pont, a cousin of Pierre and Alfred, often visited Goodstay when he was home from attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later purchased the property.
Du Pont, who owned the hotels the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, the Willard in Washington, D.C., and the Bellevue-Stratford in Philadelphia, gave Goodstay and its 16 acres to his daughter, Ellen du Pont Coleman Meeds, in 1923.
She then hired landscape architect Robert Wheelwright to restore and enhance the gardens. Wheelwright, who designed Valley Garden Park in Greenville (another must-visit), and Meeds later married. Wheelwright transformed the gardens throughout the late 1930s, making numerous expansions, including the planting of magnolia trees.
After Ellen Wheelwright died in 1968, the property was given to the University of Delaware. In the late 1980s, Wilmington resident Helen Eliason was a leading force in rejuvenating the declining gardens, and the Friends of Goodstay Gardens was formed in the 1990s.
Friends, a nonprofit group, manages the upkeep of the gardens through donations and the hard work of volunteers. Some of the Damask roses still blooming in the gardens date back to the 1920s during the Wheelwrights’ time at Goodstay.
Goodstay is a carry-in/carry-out park with no restrooms or trash receptacles. Artists, photographers, and picnickers are welcome. Dogs are, too, but they must be leashed. High school students in the know sometimes pose for prom photos there. There’s free parking in a lot adjoining the Goodstay Mansion.
Walk through the garden’s gate and get ready to drink in the beauty. Blossoms change with the seasons, and the variety is impressive. Come in April and you’ll find tulips and magnolias; by Mother’s Day, there will be roses, peonies and irises.
During my August visit, I saw deep orange and coral-colored zinnias, tall golden sunflowers buzzing with bees, flowering tobacco plants, tangerine-hued leopard lilies, pink-colored pollinators known as fleabane, and tuffs of lavender-hued verbena.
Crunch down one gravel path and you’ll come upon a bubbling fountain. Go down another, and you’ll find benches to plop down on and read a book or shady areas to spread out a blanket.
Fall promises to bring amaranth, dahlias, asters and salvia. Next time I come (and there will be a next time), I’m bringing my dog (on a leash) and a cup of coffee and maybe a pastry to enjoy at one of the vintage garden chairs and tables at the back of the house.
Just remember, when you leave the garden, the trash leaves with you.
Unfortunately, there’s no exploring the historic Goodstay Center Mansion. At least not for now.
It has been temporarily closed by UD’s Department of Environmental Health & Safety, according to a sign on one of the doors.
When asked why the building was closed, a spokeswoman for the University of Delaware sent a statement: “Goodstay is home to one of the oldest continuously kept gardens in Delaware, with the origins of the garden (and the building there) dating to the 1700s. With older structures, it is important to routinely assess and address any maintenance priorities in order to ensure a safe visitor experience. At this time, only the gardens are still fully accessible to the public.”
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Patricia Talorico writes about food, restaurants, true crime, and Delaware history. You can find her on Instagram, X and Facebook. Email ptalorico@delawareonline.com. Sign up for her Delaware Eats newsletter.