Hotel du Pont
The historic Hotel du Pont in downtown Wilmington, Del., will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year. In the heart of the verdant Brandywine Valley region, it’s close to Philadelphia and popular area attractions including the Winterthur Museum and Country Estate, Delaware Art Museum and Longwood Gardens. It is also conveniently located within two miles of the Wilmington Convention Center. The 217-room hotel has earned the International Gold Key Award for design, and each one has been restored and refurbished to reflect the history of the hotel. Its more than 30,000 square feet of meeting space includes an IACC-approved conference center of 20,000 square feet. The Gold Ballroom is ornately decorated with sparkling chandeliers, hand-etched scenes in sgraffito—a form of scratching art into colored plaster dating from the Italian Renaissance—and medallions of famous women in history, and can accommodate up to 500. Looking for entertainment? The 1,252-seat DuPont Theatre located in the hotel features traveling Broadway productions throughout the year. The Victorian theater is the oldest continuously operating legitimate theater in the country.
