Monday, October 24, 2011

Nemours water tower

Nemours as an estate in a relatively undeveloped area had to be self-sufficient, like many country houses of the time (and today no doubt).

One enters the estate via a long drive with an allee of trees (seen at the top of the map below) before reaching the entry court, seen below with a #3 at the English gates.Unmarked on the map, directly behind the gates from the house is a beautiful marble fountain with a fairy-tale like tower in the background.

Was this some sort of folly for Dupont's grandchildren I wondered? I had visions of a playroom at the top of the tower with a Rapunzel theme. Bronze turtles feed the marble fountain.


It turns out to be much more utilitarian than all of that: the tower is filled with machinery and is the pump and water tower for the estate! A local stone base with tall stucco shaft, matching the house, is topped with an ornate wooden structure. Notice the clock and weather vane too!A very grand and picturesque necessity but maybe a tad disappointing for me; I still want Dupont's office at the top or at least the aforementioned playroom!.

4 comments:

The Devoted Classicist said...

A new thru road through an adjacent farm passes near an abandoned silo that I had imagined a similar treatment as the water tower. Now there is just a concrete shaft, so it needs a finishing top, and I was thinking of one very similar in concept to this. Unfortunately the sides of the column do not slope in this case. But the Nemours tower is a wonderful example of decorating a utilitarian structure.

Ann said...

Remarkably beautiful nonetheless for such a utilitarian structure!

Mark D. Ruffner said...

I think this is delightful! Would such a structure get built today? I doubt it. I imagine instead a humongous black or white cube visible on top of a building.

Francine Gardner said...

I love the structure. This water tower brought me back to much younger years... Our summer home in Eze Village, small village on the hills near Nice, featured a free standing water tower which was turned into my bedroom. I used to have nightmares that the tower would fill in with water...