She was born in
Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to Antoine Biderman (or Bidermann) du Pont, Jr., and Mary Ethel (Clark) du Pont. The
Du Ponts were an old and well-to-do family; her great-grandfather was the industrialist
Alfred V. du Pont. She attended
Wellesley College, where she earned her undergraduate degree in 1923. She went on to receive her certificate in architecture in 1925 from the
Cambridge School of Domestic and Landscape Architecture for Women (which was not yet a degree-granting institution); ten years later, after the school became affiliated with
Smith College, she was awarded the M. Arch degree. Victorine and Samuel moved to
Wilmington, Delaware, and in 1935, they opened a firm known as Victorine & Samuel Homsey (later Victorine & Samuel Homsey, Inc.). They were perhaps the first Delaware architects to work in the
International Style, and one of their early house designs was chosen by the
Museum of Modern Art to represent the International Style in a 1938 Paris exhibition. In general, however, their style was more eclectic, and in part because they began their careers during the
Great Depression, they felt it was important for architects to work on developing ways to work economically and with new materials. In 1950, one of their house designs for small sites was included in a "Five-Star" series developed by
Better Homes and Gardens, for which the working drawings and specifications could be purchased by mail for $5. ==References==