This Garden Was Named the Most Beautiful in the U.S. — and It Just Underwent a $250 Million Expansion

Longwood Gardens just underwent a major renovation.

One might assume that being named the most beautiful garden in the world would allow for some coasting, but that’s not the case for Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. The famed complex of gardens, conservatories, and fountains in the leafy hills south of Philadelphia is about to unveil a jaw-dropping $250 million expansion that ensures this historic icon will continue to be a crowd-pleaser for decades to come.

It includes a 32,000-square-foot conservatory that appears to float on water with a Mediterranean garden inside, a 12,000-square-foot bonsai courtyard, a glitzy new restaurant overlooking the fountains, a pavilion devoted to Roberto Burley Marx’s cascade garden, and new groves of trees.

The new additions open to the public on Nov. 22, and Travel + Leisure got a first look.

For the unfamiliar, Longwood is the 1,100-acre compound built in 1906 by Pierre S. du Pont, a member of the fabulously wealthy du Pont family of Delaware. It’s in the Brandywine Valley, 12 miles from Wilmington, Delaware and 30 miles from Philadelphia. It has a series of conservatories with elaborate indoor horticulture displays, a popular fountain show set in elegant Baroque stone terraces, and themed gardens set in the woods and around a half-dozen ponds.

The area also has two other spectacular du Pont family properties you can visit: Winterthur, which houses the family’s American antiques collection (one of the largest in the world), and Nemours, a chateau with Versailles-like gardens. 

Designed by the New York architecture firm Weiss/Manfredi, the new West Conservatory is unlike anything built in the West in recent decades. The glass and metal structure has a pleated roof that unfolds unevenly, evoking the nearby rolling hills. Optical illusions abound, the facade facing the fountains dips in a sort of catenary dip to trick the eye into thinking the roofline is. The columns supporting its roof are asymmetrical and curving, changing shape as you approach the building. And the whole complex rests on a glimmering reflecting pool.

Interspersed on islands floating in the pool inside are Mediterranean gardens designed by Reed Hildebrand with Mediterranean cypress, agave, bay laurels, and kumquat grown in espalier style. The designers wanted to make sure it was a space that could be enjoyed by intergenerational groups, so there are areas set off with benches for people to rest and take it all in.

Adjacent to the new conservatory is a new bonsai courtyard that will feature a rotating selection of 50 to 60 bonsai, many of which come from the dozens recently donated by the Kennett Collection, the largest outside Asia. These mini sculptural wonders will be displayed amongst nearly a dozen Yoshino cherry trees.

A central mission for the architects was to create a sense of cohesiveness between the property’s varied attractions and to give some of its works more of a star billing. For years, one of Longwood’s greatest treasures was suffering: its Cascade Garden, the only surviving design in North America by legendary Brazilian landscape designer Roberto Burle Marx, wasn’t getting the attention it deserved. Now, this work of art meant to evoke the rainforest has a whole pavilion to itself.

Outside the pavilion, the Water Lily Court (which exhibits several of Longwood’s 1,200 water lilies) has been enclosed in a ring of columns that transition the historic conservancies made of stone and composite into the contemporary ones of glass and steel.

Despite the awe-inspiring ambition of the new conservatory and gardens, the most remarkable addition for visitors to Longwood might just be the restaurant that the architects carved out of the Earth underneath the original Beaux-arts Conservancy. There’s always been enough to see to make a full day of it at Longwood, but the new 1906 Restaurant will likely make it so you want to stretch it out with lunch or dinner here.

Set in a series of lattice-strapped vaults, the restaurant looks through arched glass windows out onto Longwood’s fountains. It’s a remarkable view during the day, as the sun glitters off the shooting water. But at night during various parts of the year, Longwood puts on what it likes to call "water ballet" at its very finest — an illuminated fountain show that could humble even the greatest Vegas showman. Set to music, the fountains sway and shimmy, shooting high into the night sky, sometimes aflame, in a vertiginous frenzy.

And now it can all be enjoyed in a beautiful restaurant over a refined fine-dining meal.