Mansion in May 2025: Wildfair

Designer showhouse will benefit new Proton Therapy Center

The region’s premier designer showhouse — Mansion in May Designer Showhouse and Gardens — opens May 1 at historic Wildfair in Chester Township. The event will feature 38 interior spaces and nine landscape spaces created by leading designers.

Sponsored by the Women’s Association for Morristown Medical Center, Mansion in May will raise funds for the new Proton Therapy Center at MMC’s Carol G. Simon Cancer Center. Proton therapy is an advanced cancer treatment that targets a patient’s tumor with submillimeter precision. It deposits a high dose of radiation directly in the tumor and then stops, selectively destroying cancer cells and leaving healthy cells intact. It is especially benefit for patients with head and neck cancer, brain tumors and liver, lung and prostate cancer. It also is used for women with left-sided breast cancer because proton therapy can protect the heart from damage.

The site of Mansion in May has a rich history dating back more than 220 years. It once was a working farm and the site of a gristmill, sawmill and workshop for the manufacture of millstones, according to historian W. Barry Thomson. In 1934, Elizabeth and Harry Hollins III, acquired the property and hired Philadelphia architectural firm of Willing, Sims & Talbutt to design their new country estate. They retained the original late-18^th or early-19^th century stone farmhouse and designed extensive fieldstone additions to create a rambling country retreat the Hollinses named Wildfair. Elizabeth was a cousin, close friend and sometimes rival of Dorothy May Kinnicutt Parish, better known as Sister Parish, one of the leading American interior decorators of the 20^th century. It is not known whether Sister Parish collaborated with her cousin on the interiors of Wildfair. The property eventually passed through several other owners and was enlarged in the mid-1990s into the rambling country estate it is today.

The showhouse and gardens will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily (last entry at 3 p.m.) through May 31. Tickets are $50 until May 1, when the price increases to $55. There is no on-site parking. Free shuttle service is provided from 82 W. Main St. in Mendham.

Infants and children under 10 are not permitted to visit the mansion, and the site is not handicapped accessible. A café will sell box lunches, and boutiques will offer items for sale. Designer sales items will be available for purchase also.

For more information or to purchase tickets, MansionInMay.org.