PHILADELPHIA — Jane Pauley stood in front of the magnificent three-story Ardrossan mansion on a recent Monday squinting in the mid-morning sunlight, studying the teleprompter.

Her yellow blazer made a sunny reflection on the glossy, tomato red 1930s sports car atop the mile-long driveway; her signature tapered cut whispered in the warm spring wind. The seasoned host of "CBS News Sunday Morning" spoke slowly in her familiar authoritative voice.

“This grand home has seen any number of guests on all kinds of occasions,” Pauley said, referring to the storied 114-year-old Main Line manor, once home to the city’s illustrious Montgomery family, who inspired the 1940 film "The Philadelphia Story," starring Katharine Hepburn.

“Not all of them were lucky enough to pull up in a 1936 Auburn Boattail Speedster. But if they did, they might have had similarly luxurious luggage. Alina Cho in Paris offers us an inside look at one of the world’s iconic luxury brands.”

Pauley was introducing a "Sunday Morning" segment featuring Louis Vuitton, the 172-year-old French luggage company heralded for its sturdy design and ubiquitous LVs. It’s one of several pieces to be featured Sunday morning on CBS’ beloved annual "By Design" episode in which Paris luxury will be among the extras, but Philadelphia design will star.

“Philadelphia is America’s birthplace, and when it comes to design, there is so much beauty here,” Pauley said. She spoke to The Inquirer on her lunch break in the mini castle’s airy breakfast room, just off the 384-square-foot butler’s pantry with its glass-fronted cabinets holding decades-old crystal stemware and an old-school intercom system used to summon the help.

The whole setup gave "Downton Abbey" vibes.

“Philadelphia, with its colonial-era houses and America’s 250th birthday celebrations, made it a winning candidate for this year’s design episode,” Pauley said. “And Ardrossan, Wow! You can’t ask for a better launching point.”

For more than a quarter of a century, the 90-minute news magazine has celebrated design in an annual show spotlighting everything from architecture to fashion. Pauley — who succeeded Charles Osgood as the show’s lead anchor in 2016 — has traveled to Florence, Rome, Amsterdam and London for “By Design.”

Last year, “By Design” centered New Orleans’ style with pieces on Creole culture and food.

Pauley will introduce most of the show’s segments from Ardrossan, but correspondents will report from other locales. A piece centered in the Southwest will feature earthen architecture fashioned from adobe. A reporter will take us on a trip to Finland for the behind-the-scenes floral story of fashion, accessories, and home decor brand Marimekko.

Still, the 2026 “By Design” episode will be a Philly jawn.

The legacy of 19th-century architect Frank Furness, whose Old City firm designed the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Fisher Fine Arts Library, and several of the city’s majestic stone churches, will get unpacked.

A food piece will ferry viewers to Pat’s King of Steaks to talk about the almighty cheesesteak; Center City Pretzel Co., bringing us up close and personal to our doughy salty treasure; and Liberty Kitchen for a lesson in our town’s favorite sammich: the hoagie.

And in "Sunday Morning’s" final serene segment, Pauley will give viewers a tiny peek at Chanticleer Gardens.

“We are absolutely thrilled to be in Philadelphia,” said Jon Carras, who has produced the “By Design” episode for 10 years. “It’s such a national treasure, this city. The culture and the food are so special.”

The "Sunday Morning" team wouldn’t have made Philadelphia its home base for Sunday’s show if it hadn’t been for David Nelson Wren, author of the 2017 coffee table book "Ardrossan: The Last Great Estate on the Philadelphia Main Line."

Wren sent a copy of "Ardrossan" to CBS correspondent Martha Teichnerin 2017, in advance of its release. Teichner passed it on to Carras, who called Wren and visited Ardrossan earlier this year.

“He told me he had the book on his desk for four years,” Wren, who is 70, said. “And I said, ‘Well, good thing I didn’t die.’”

Ardrossan’s story is among the bluest of Philadelphia blue blood sagas.

Radnor native Col. Robert Montgomery was a young man, finding his footing as a husband and banker in the early 1900s when he was thrown from a horse during a Radnor Hunt in Ithan, which today is part of Villanova.

Montgomery was knocked unconscious and when he came to, he fell in love with the verdant land that lay before him, vowing to buy it when he made enough money.

Between 1908 and 1910, Montgomery and his wife, Charlotte Hope, bought 350 acres of the land and named it Ardrossan, a town in Scotland where Montgomery’s ancestors originated.

In 1911, Montgomery hired high-profile Philadelphia architect Horace Trumbauer to design what would become his family’s year-round home.

Trumbauer was well-known in elite Philadelphia circles — think the Wideners, the Elkins, the Drexels, and the Clothiers (of Strawbridge & Clothier). His firm also designed the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Trumbauer hired British decorating firm White, Allom & Company to provide the mansion’s quaint, yet lush British country house aesthetic.

On Oct. 15, 1912, the Montgomerys moved into the 30,000-square-foot Georgian revival style country house with its slate roof and limestone cornices.

The grand home boasted 14 bedrooms, nine full bathrooms, 18 fireplaces, a third-floor playroom, and a 1,000-square-foot ballroom, complete with two gleaming chandeliers. Double front doors lead into the vestibule. Carved railings dance along the staircases.

Montgomery later acquired an additional 400 acres, bringing Ardrossan to 750 acres at its peak, Wren said.

“It was almost like a feudal estate,” Wren said. “The people who worked on the estate lived there as did the people who kept up the dairy farm.”

Through the rest of the 20th century, the grand home would be the scene of many a Main Line soiree. Charlotte Hope Montgomery regularly hosted tea parties, dinner parties, and balls for herself and her husband’s fancy banker colleagues. (Montgomery founded Montgomery Scott, that would ultimately become Janney Montgomery Scott.)

Each of the Montgomerys’ four children would become prominent Philadelphia socialites, especially the eldest daughter, Helen Hope Montgomery Scott.

Playwright Philip Barry loosely based his 1939 play "The Philadelphia Story" on the Montgomery family, starring Katharine Hepburn as Tracy Lord, whose character was loosely based on Helen Hope. The movie was released in 1940.

"The Philadelphia Story" paints “a distinct picture of high-society life on the Main Line in the 1930s," Wren wrote.

While most of Ardrossan’s 750 acres have been subdivided and no longer a part of the estate, the Georgian house and its surrounding 10 acres remain in the Montgomery family.

On film day, a bevy of producers, camera men and makeup artists darted between the living room, dining room, study, library and the ballroom on Ardrossan’s first floor.

Oil portraits of Montgomery and his wife Charlotte Hope hang in the living room. Additional portraits of their children, Helen Hope, Mary Binney, Robert Alexander and Charlotte Ives line the ballroom walls.

“There are so many beautiful memories here,” said Joan Mackie, adopted daughter of Mary Binney, whose 1960s bridal portrait is among the many in the first floor library. Mackie is in her 80s and remembers her grandmother Charlotte’s tea parties and Sunday suppers.

After lunch all eyes are on Pauley as she introduces Mo Rocca’s segment about chandeliers under the ballroom’s gleaming crystal chandelier.

“Just when I thought this would never happen, it happened,” Wren said about CBS’ visit. “You never know when the phone is going to ring.”

And in the case of "CBS News Sunday Morning," how the sun will shine.

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“CBS News Sunday Morning” will air “By Design Philly” on Sunday, May 17, at 9 a.m. on CBS.

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