Check Out

Chester County’s museums and public gardens provide plenty of insight on simple, style and spaces. Just the stuff we love at CCDwell.

Here are some of the places that continue to inspire us:

Longwood Gardens

It started as a working farm and arboretum by the Peirce Quaker family in 1700, then became the home of Pierre du Pont in 1906 so he could preserve the trees and garden to his heart’s delight. 
The formal gardens are forever changing with exhibits and insights into creating your own flowering habitat or tree museum. And the Idea Garden amazes us each year with a varied display of color and plant specimens that’ll spark your inner gardener. Guaranteed.

Winterthur Museum and Gardens

Sure there’s some rather fancy decorative arts here that founder Founder Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969) collected, used, and most certainly cherished. The beauty in this collection is in its ability to offer a peek at early-American culture through objects like tools, metalworks, ceramics and paintings. There’s also an unparalleled collection of American antiques. All the exhibits take you back in time tracing the area’s history and people that called the Brandywine Valley home. 

And the 60-acre naturalistic garden is filled with a collection of plants from around the world. There are also lots of natives that, should we say it? Yes, they’ll inspire you to plant them in your own backyard.

Mt. Cuba Center, Inc.

This 650-acre non-profit horticultural institution is recognized as the region’s best woodland wildflower gardens. We know that technically it’s not in Chester County, but trust us, the display of native flowers will blow your mind.

Brandywine River Museum

Three generations of Wyeth art is exhibited here, along with world-renowned American illustrators, still life and landscape artists. It’s also home of the Brandywine Conservancy and their wildlife and native plant gardens featuring indigenous and naturalized plants of the Brandywine Valley.

Chester County Historical Society

Research your house, your family or local history. You can also check out local events or take-in the current exhibit.