This stunning estate was the dream of George Washington Vanderbilt.  (There were lots of these guys which can be confusing – for a very brief history of the Vanderbilts and where George falls, click on his photo on the left!)  Youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, George was given the task, not of preserving the family’s business or bloodline, but of caring for his invalid mother, Maria, upon his father’s death.  George took on the task happily, and mother and son traveled from health resort to health resort seeking ‘the cure.’  Their travels eventually led them on repeated trips to Asheville, North Carolina.  The pair loved the area, but George was tired of staying in hotels and decided the solution would be to build a ‘little’ house for their use when they were in town.  For the purpose, George purchased 125,000 acres of mostly desiccated land, then called upon renowned landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted and family architect, Richard Morris Hunt, to help him figure out what to do with it all.  Together, the three men conjured a living masterpiece.

Construction of the house took six years, employing hundreds of local and foreign workers and artisans, and incorporating all the latest technology.  When it first opened on Christmas Eve 1895, the 178,926 square foot Biltmore House boasted central heating, electricity, plumbing (with water pumped in from an estate reservoir built just for the purpose), fire alarms, mechanical refrigeration, and working elevators for both the family and their staff.

While this American château was rising from the hills, Olmsted and his crews were just as busily at work shaping the grounds.  They created a nursery to cultivate the millions of plants they would need for the home’s 250 acres of gardens, and brought in a French-trained forestry expert to oversee the reforestation of the rest of Vanderbilt’s over-farmed land, in the process developing the first planned forestry program in America, and what would eventually become the United States’ first national forest.

From the beginning, George wanted Biltmore to be self-sustaining.  He refurbished the nearby town of Best- renaming it Biltmore Village and creating comfortable homes and schools for the estate workers and their families.  The manure from the livestock helped the Biltmore’s farms and forests to thrive.  The carefully curated forests provided firewood and lumber.  The cows eventually inspired the largest dairy in the area, the buildings of which are now used to house the most visited winery in the country.  And it is all still running today, managed by George’s own descendants.

In case you haven’t guessed by now, I was thoroughly impressed by the whole thing.  The house is grand, yet immensely comfortable, the grounds are breathtaking, and the whole endeavor completely awe-inspiring.  I continue to marvel at the imagination and ingenuity which built it and which has kept it running to the benefit of all concerned for more than a century, continually adapting to the times.

I would dearly love to plan a return visit in the warmer months to take full advantage of all the grounds have to offer!  Gardens, horseback riding, hiking…and to explore more of the nooks and crannies of that magnificent house that weren’t open during the Christmas season.

If I have managed to inspire in you even a little of my own enthusiasm for the Biltmore, go plan your trip!  If you need any tips or suggestions, check out my previous Biltmore Essentials post, but here on the blog, we’re going to move along to the next.  So much world to see!!!