Ernest Warther Museum & Gardens, Dover

About Ernest Warther Museum & Gardens

The Ernest Warther Museum & Gardens in Dover showcases the life work of Ernest "Mooney" Warther, a self-taught artist who hand-sculpted more than sixty intricate steam-engine pieces over eighty-two years using only a pocketknife. Visitors explore Mooney's original workshop, preserved untouched since his death in 1973, and tour the family home that Mooney and his wife Frieda built themselves in 1910. The museum includes the Button House, displaying over 73,000 buttons arranged in quilts and geometric patterns. The Dave Warther Arboretum features fifty woody plant species, historic structures including an early twentieth-century steam engine and 1920s caboose, and Frieda Warther's Swiss Gardens. Guided tours last approximately one hour and fifteen minutes, while most visitors spend two hours on site. Self-guided tours are available throughout the day. The property also provides access to gardens and grounds where guests can walk the arboretum paths and view the original telegraph office of Dover.