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19. Chateau (Coastal Community Bank)505 Clifford Sims Pkwy.
Designed by architect Bryan Duncan and built in 1939 as the local residence of Jessie Ball duPont, the widow of Alfred I. duPont and sister of Ed Ball. The Chateau also provided lodging for St. Joe Paper Company executives. The Chateau had round-the-clock cooks, waiters, and a chauffeur. In 1998 it was sold for a bed and breakfast inn and was later converted to the Coastal Community Bank. The owners of the bank have carefully maintained much of the original character of the building.
Jessie Ball duPont was born in 1884 at Cressfield on Ball’s Creek, Northumberland County, Virginia in prime duck hunting country. Here she met Alfred I. duPont of Nemours near Wilmington. She and duPont began a correspondence that continued for over 20 years. In 1908 she moved with her parents to San Diego where she became assistant principal of the largest elementary school in the city. In 1920 they re-established their earlier friendship and he boarded a train west to visit her. They were quietly married in 1921. Alfred duPont was going deaf, and at his request Jessie set up an office next to his to learn his business and charitable enterprises. They planned to use his large fortune for the benefit of society with the advice and assistance of Jessie’s brother Edward Ball.
When Alfred duPont died in 1935, Jessie Ball duPont became the principal trustee of his estate. She created three foundations in his memory: one to build a children’s hospital in Delaware, a second to serve the needy in Florida, Delaware and Virginia, and a third to recognize outstanding contributions in the field of broadcast journalism. For four decades she funded gifts to churches, major charities, children’s homes, historic buildings and art museums. When she died in 1970, her will established the Jessie Ball duPont Religious, Charitable and Educational Fund to continue her philanthropic work.
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