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Biltmore Estate - Asheville, NC
If America doesn’t have royalty, you would never guess it when visiting
the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. This 250 room mansion was done
in a style copied from three chateaux in the Loire Valley and completed
in 1895. George Washington Vanderbilt didn’t have any problems spending
the money inherited from grandpa, Cornelius Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilts
lived and entertained in only twenty-six of the rooms, but that doesn’t
include the billiard room, the bowling alley, and the indoor swimming pool.
Renoirs, Durers, Ming vases and items like Napoleon’s desk dot these rooms.
A fireplace mantel in the breakfast room was immediately recognizable as
Wedgwood.
The remainder of the rooms were for servants and equipment necessary
to maintaining their opulent lifestyle. Mention was made that the
Vanderbilts supplied servants with labor saving devices not generally available
to the public yet, such as clothes washers and dryers, an electric spit,
and electric dumbwaiters. I did notice, however, that unlike the
family and guest rooms, servants rooms had chamber pots and kerosene lamps
instead of bathrooms and electric lighting.
The 8,000 acre estate is cut down in size from earlier times when
it included some nearby mountains. The 75 acres of formal gardens
surrounding the house were designed by the same person who designed Central
Park. They are stunning. The wisteria was no longer in bloom,
but I did find a patch of about three feet still mysteriously radiant. |
