A New Chapter Awaits Penderyn
Shore Life

At the end of a winding gravel driveway in Queenstown rises the stately Georgian-style brick mansion known as Penderyn. Sitting gracefully on a 32-plus acre peninsula at the confluence of the Wye River, DeCoursey Cove, and the Wye Narrows, this 22,500-square-foot manor housemay look as if it has graced the property since Colonial times, but Penderyn (Welsh for “head of the bird”) was actually built less than 25 years ago.

Situated at the heart of the Eastern Shore opposite the banks of the Wye Island Preserve, Penderyn is one of the largest river homes in the area. The impressive home, elegant in its simplicity and restraint, is bounded by water on three sides and enjoys a central siting amidst verdant lawns, wildflower meadows, and colorful English gardens.

Despite its recent vintage, Penderyn has a storied past. While many local residents may not know the estate by its formal name, mention “the Chef Boyardee House” and you’ll be met with knowing nods.

Penderyn was not built by the Italian-born Chef Boyardee himself (yes, he was a real person, famous for creating the “Chef Boyardee” line of canned foods) but by his entrepreneurial son, Mario Boiardi.

Mario’s father, Ettore, was raised in Italy, becoming an excellent cook even as a child. He immigrated to America when he was 16, taking the name "Hector" as he passed through Ellis Island. Once in this country, he worked in the kitchens of several upscale restaurants, includingthose at New York's famous Plaza and Ritz-Carlton Hotels. Often the youngest cook in the kitchen, Boiardi grew the stylish mustache which eventually became his trademark, but at first was simply an attempt to make himself look older.

Boiardi and his wife moved to Cleveland where, at the tender age of just 24, he opened his own restaurant, Il Giardino d'Italia, in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood. It wasn’t long before his spaghetti sauce became so popular he started selling it in carry-out bottles. Sales of the bottled sauce soon surpassed his restaurant's business, and in 1936 Boiardi began labeling his pre-packaged foods as "Chef Boyardee" (changing the moniker to the more phonetic spelling of his name, having had to explain one too many times just how to pronounce his actual surname). The Chef Boyardee products proved so popular that during World War II, the plant was open 24 hours a day, producing food rations for soldiers grateful for a taste of home. In 1946, following the war, Boiardi sold the company to American Home Foods for the then staggering price of $6million.

Even after selling the company, the elder Boiardi appeared in numerous TV commercials during the ’50s and ‘60s advertising the foods he had made popular. Hector Boiardi died in 1985, but that characteristic mustache and smile still grace cans of Beefaroni, ravioli, and other preparedItalian foods (the company is now owned by ConAgra), and spinoffs of his TV commercials are once again being broadcast.

Son Mario didn’t follow his father into the food business. Instead, the graduate of Valley Forge Military Academy and College served as an Army Ranger during World War II, later attendingCase Western Reserve University on the GI bill and earning a degree in business, before serving the country again during the Korean War.

Father and son did, however, own a steel mill together and Mario later established a marble flooring and tile company, which he sold in 1990, then founding Super Step, a research and development firm for new business owners.

In the early 1980s, Mario and his wife Maureen (“Mo”) moved to the Eastern Shore and built Penderyn, where they lived until they sold the estate in 1999. Boiardi died in 2007 at the age of 81.

Rumors abounded at the time of the sale of Penderyn that celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey were interested in purchasing it—though those rumors were never confirmed—and the estate was eventually sold to its current owners, Morgan O’Brien—co-founder of Nextel Communications—and his wife, Belle.

The O’Briens were first captivated by the property while sailing past the foundation of the house as it was being built. Once the home was completed, the couple was invited by the Boiardis to a New Year’s Eve party which—though they didn’t know it at the time—sealed their fate.

“The house was filled with flowers, music, and several hundred people having a wonderful time,” O’Brien recalls. “We just fell in love with it.”

About a decade later, the O’Briens were renovating their own Queenstown estate of Bowlingly, and Morgan, half-joking said, “We should buy Penderyn.” Soon afterwards, they did just that.

“The house just speaks to me,” says O’Brien.  

It’s not hard to see why. Boiardi patterned Penderyn after William Paca’s Wye Hall Manor, with generous wings and meticulous architectural details. Handmade rose-colored bricks, stately proportions, authentic English corbelled chimneys, rippled glass windows and doors, classic columns, and lead and copper roofs pay homage to the 18th-century Palladian style, but with all of today's expected conveniences.

Inside the main house, the 23 rooms include a marble foyer, 60-foot long gallery lined with sculptured busts, urns, and ginger jars, 11 fireplaces, nine spacious bedrooms, nine full baths, and three half-baths. Most of the bedrooms have their own balconies. The other rooms, including a billiards room, family room, drawing room, and conservatory with hand-painted trompe l’oeilceiling, feature such unique accents as hand-painted Chinese silk wall-coverings, a 17th-century French limestone fireplace, Coyne vaulted ceilings, and an 18th-century signed Perry of London crystal chandelier.

Ceilings soar twelve feet in height (even higher in the entrance foyer); principal first floor rooms and upstairs bedroom suites feature wood-burning fireplaces and antique mantelsurrounds imported from Europe, and floor-to-ceiling windows bathe the interior spaces with sunlight and offer beautiful vistas of the changing seasons on the river Wye.

The rest of the Penderyn estate includes a pool house for the large swimming pool and a 157-foot Bailey dock with 11 boat slips. Between the exterior wings lie regal courtyards and elegant formal gardens. The land is surrounded by adjoining properties to protect the area from future development, ensuring perpetual privacy and unchanging views.

“There is a terrific feeling of seclusion here,” says O’Brien, noting that on summer mornings he enjoys hearing the voices of local oystermen. “But come every season, I say, ‘This is the most beautiful.’”

Despite its grandeur, once inside, visitors to Penderyn will find a warm, inviting, family-friendly home. The O’Briens worked with their long-time interior designer Mary Weaver in furnishing the estate, re-creating the European style of the original owners.

While the house has a formal exterior, the O’Briens wanted to make sure it didn’t feel like a museum. And indeed, the interior has a surprisingly cozy feel. Architecturally, its large scale was gracefully modulated by creating rooms with proportions suitable for both intimate gatherings and normal family living, but also large-scale entertaining (such as Morgan O’Briens 65th birthday celebration, attended by 750 guests).

“It’s a good mix of old and new,” says O’Brien, adding that he and his wife wanted the home’s interior to be “warm, lively, and family-friendly.”

Weaver took her cue from the O’Briens’ preferences for the feel of an English country house that would be welcoming to family, friends, kids, and pets. “We wanted people to feel that they could put their feet up and just relax,” says Weaver, who used many pieces that the family already owned and then combined them with new treasures purchased at auction or on the O’Briens’ many travels. In keeping with the more relaxed feel, Weaver chose informal, colorful chintzes for many of the home’s upholstered pieces, steering clear of the more expected—and more formal—silks and taffetas one might see in such a grand space. Ottomans, rather than coffee tables, further add to the sit-a-spell feeling throughout the home, and in every room are reflections of the O’Briens’ many interests, from book-lined shelves to personal collections of Delft, Chinese export porcelain, and Staffordshire dogs.

“The main emphasis on furnishing the home was comfort,” says Weaver. “I think we accomplished that.”

But a new chapter is waiting to be written for Penderyn, as the O’Briens have put the estate up for sale in order to move closer to other family members, as well as to spend time on their floating home and at their Caribbean residence. They hope another family will love it just as much as they have. And though they are excited to try a different lifestyle, still, they say, “We will miss it terribly. It has been a privilege to live here.”