A Victorian mansion in DeLand, Florida just changed everything I thought I knew about the state

DeLand’s Gilded Age secret

On a quiet lane in DeLand, Florida, a three-story Victorian mansion has been standing since 1886, and most people drove right past it for a century.

John B. Stetson, the man who put the cowboy hat on America’s head, built this place as his winter home.

It covers roughly 10,000 square feet, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation calls it Florida’s only richly detailed Gilded Age mansion.

You can walk through every room on a guided tour, and nothing is roped off. The floors alone will stop you in your tracks.

From tuberculosis out west to a hat empire

John Batterson Stetson was born in 1830 in Orange, New Jersey, into a family of hatters.

Tuberculosis sent him west to Colorado as a young man, and during an expedition near Pike’s Peak, he shaped a wide-brimmed, waterproof felt hat from his own skills. That hat changed everything.

He went back to Philadelphia in 1865 and started the John B. Stetson Company, which grew into one of the largest hat makers in the world. Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley all wore his hats.

Five architectural styles in one house

Philadelphia architect George T. Pearson drew up the plans, and he didn’t pick just one look. The mansion blends cottage, Gothic, Tudor, Moorish and Polynesian styles into a single building.

You’ll see a big hip roof with dormers, rounded bays, towers and a mix of oak and cedar shingles on the outside.

Stetson originally wanted something even bigger on his roughly 300-acre citrus grove, but his wife Elizabeth talked him down.

Even scaled back, the mansion’s operators call it the grandest home built in Florida before 1900.

Thomas Edison wired the electricity himself

Thomas Edison and the Stetson family were personal friends, and Edison supervised the electrical installation in the mansion.

According to both the mansion’s operators and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the home was one of the first in the world designed and built to run on Edison electricity.

His original circuit box still hangs in the breezeway between the kitchen and dining room, complete with handwritten notations in Edison’s own hand.

The house also had steam heat, indoor plumbing on all three floors and an electric call bell system, all rare in the 1880s.

Sixteen hand-laid parquet floors with no two alike

Every room on the first and second floors sits on a different pattern of hand-laid mosaic parquet wood flooring. There are 16 patterns total, some pulled from 17th- and 18th-century quilt designs.

Two of them create a three-dimensional optical effect that makes the floor look like it’s moving beneath you. Workers crafted every piece by hand, without power tools, and the floors are still original to the house.

Tour after tour, visitors point to these floors as the single most impressive thing inside.

10,000 panes of glass and a wall from a French chateau

The mansion holds 10,000 panes of original leaded and stained glass, many designed by Tiffany.

Six fireplaces sit framed by imported tile and stone, and intricate hand-carved woodwork runs through every room and hallway.

But the piece that catches you off guard is a glass and wood wall the Stetsons bought from a French chateau and shipped across the Atlantic to DeLand. The glass dates to the late 1700s.

You stand in Central Florida looking through windows older than the country itself.

Presidents and Vanderbilts came for the winter

Between 1887 and 1906, the Stetsons opened their DeLand home to some of the biggest names of the Gilded Age. The Astors, Vanderbilts, Mellons, Carnegies and Henry Flagler all walked through those parquet floors.

President Grover Cleveland visited, and so did the future King Edward VII, then still the Prince of Wales.

The Stetsons were among Florida’s earliest snowbirds, traveling south from Philadelphia each winter to spend months at the estate.

A Polynesian schoolhouse built for the Stetson children

Right next to the main house sits an 800-square-foot building with a soaring ceiling that reaches over 15 feet.

Stetson originally built it as the mansion’s kitchen, but it became a one-room schoolhouse for his children during their winter stays.

A headmaster or headmistress traveled down from Philadelphia each year to teach lessons inside. You can still see the distinctive arched plank ceiling from the original construction.

The building now serves as a guest cottage and gift shop.

A century of neglect nearly erased it

After John B. Stetson died in 1906, the mansion changed hands again and again. It became a tearoom, then a failed bed-and-breakfast, then a music studio, then an antique shop.

None of it stuck. By 2005, the house needed serious work.

JT Thompson and Michael Solari bought it for $565,000 and completed a floor-to-ceiling restoration in about 18 months.

They preserved 95 percent of the original structure and details while adding modern systems to keep the place running.

A DeLand family carries it forward

In 2024, the Jennings family took over day-to-day operations at the mansion.

Co-owner Kayla Jennings grew up a block away and was married on the mansion’s grand staircase before she ever ran the place.

Her family has deep roots in DeLand’s business community, and they’ve expanded the tour schedule throughout the year.

The mansion pulls in roughly 20,000 visitors annually between its Christmas events and other tours, according to local tourism officials.

The Christmas Spectacular fills all 10 rooms

Every year from November through mid-January, the mansion goes full holiday.

Ten rooms get elaborate themed displays, and the designs change completely each season, so repeat visitors see something new every time.

USA Today’s 10Best has ranked it the top Holiday Home Tour in Florida and second in the entire country.

A baby grand player piano fills the rooms with holiday music while you walk past over 50 nativities collected from around the world.

Guided tours cover every floor with nothing roped off

You walk through all three floors on a guided tour, and every room is open. Historic tours run from February through May and last 60 to 90 minutes depending on the type.

Guides walk you through the Stetson family’s story, the famous guests who stayed here and the long restoration that brought the house back.

The mansion runs entirely without public funding or tax dollars, so your ticket keeps the whole operation going.

Visit the Stetson Mansion in DeLand, Florida

You’ll find the Stetson Mansion at 1031 Camphor Lane in DeLand, right between Orlando and Daytona Beach. Reservations are required for all tours and must go through the official website.

Historic tours run February through May, and the Christmas Spectacular runs November through mid-January. The mansion closes June through October.

No photography is allowed inside. There are 16 steps between each floor and no elevators, but wheelchairs and walkers can access the first floor. Parking is free on-site.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

Read more from this brand:

• The 1886 blizzard that dumped snow for 16 straight hours and ended America’s open-range era forever
• America’s colonial past comes alive in this New Hampshire river city from 1623
• There’s a 100-room labyrinth with secret bookcase doors and a very famous ex-resident in Washington, D.C.