Biltmore Estate Part 1

 Our first full day in Asheville was spent at the Biltmore Estate.    I have to admit that when I first went looking for tickets I was a little put off by the cost.  In the end I went ahead and made the splurge because I had always wanted to visit "America's castle", it's the largest private house in the USA.

Our day started with an audio self tour of the house.  Parking is about 1/4 mile away from the house.  You walk through a forested path and then wow...the Vanderbilt's summer house and its front lawn is right in front of you.  The estate is on 8,000 acres of land and the house is approximately 179,000 square feet.  The house was built between 1889 and 1895 by George Vanderbilt, a bachelor at the time.

After going through security and waiting in line for our time slot, we entered the house and encountered this beautiful atrium located right outside the gentlemen's billiards room.

It was as dark and manly as you might imagine.  Wood paneled walls and leather furniture.  Now they keep the blinds closed in the house to protect the furnishings, wall coverings, and art.

Next came the banquet hall.  The table can be expanded to accommodate 64 guests.  The fireplace was huge!

Next was the smaller, more intimate breakfast room with a couple of Renoir's on the wall.

There were many sitting spaces adjacent to the verandas on the backside of the house.

Just a couple Monet's hanging on the wall.  Apparently George really liked the early impressionists and was able to purchase several before they became popular.

Mary and I agreed that the veranda might have been our favorite hang out spot in the house during the summer.

This is the tapestry room that contains one of a kind tapestries from the 14th century.  

Not pictured is the music room.  Did you know that the National Gallery sent many paintings and sculptures to the Biltmore Estate during WWII to protect them in the event Washington D.C. was attacked?  They were stored in the music room because it remained unfinished until 1944.

The library was probably the most impressive room with over ten thousand volumes that George selected himself.

Then it was upstairs to more random rooms.  A family portrait of the Cecil family.  

 The Vanderbilt's only had one child, Cornelia, who married John Cecil.  The Cecil's had two sons.  The house was opened to the public in 1930 to try to generate some income.  Cornelia and John divorced in 1934 and she left the estate never to return.  John and his sons lived in wings of the house until the 1950s.  Descendants of the Cecil's still serve on the Board of the privately held company that manages the estate.

George died in 1914 following complications from surgery and his children became caretakers of the house.  After his death Edith sold 87,000 acres of the estate to create the Pigsah National Forest.  She remarried in 1925 and passed away in 1956.

A couple Sargent paintings of the house architect and landscape architect.

George's bedroom.  The bed is on an elevated platform to signify his status.  I think people must have been a lot smaller at the turn of the 20th century.

Here is Edith's bedroom.  Not quite as ornate as the main bedroom.  George married Edith in 1898.  She was said to be beautiful, educated, and cultured, but also down to earth.  It's said she got to know everyone who lived and worked on the estate by name including the children and would deliver baskets to the sick or new babies.

In-between the two bedrooms is a family space where the family could hangout in private.

We continued up more stairs to the guest quarters.  There are 35 bedrooms in the house and 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.

Each bedroom has a bathroom attached which I think must have been quite unusual during that time period.

This bedroom has the original canopy that hang over George and Edith's honeymoon bed.

Then it was down, down, down to the first basement.

There were many tunnels down there that no only provided passageway for the servants to move throughout the house, but they also supported the weight of the house.

In the basement there is a room that was obviously hand painted.  Apparently in 1925, the Cecil's hosted a new year's eve party down here and invited their guests to paint the walls.  The paintings relate to a Russian cabaret that toured the country in the 1920s that the Cecils were fans of.

There was also a bowling alley.  The pins had to be reset by a servant who stood at the end of the alley behind a half wall.

There is also a 70,000 gallon swimming pool that was heated and had lights (way ahead of its time), but no filtration system so it had to be emptied and refilled every few days.  Then one morning they came down to swim and the pool had emptied itself due to a leak.  It was never repaired.  There are ropes hanging down on the sides because apparently people didn't really know how to swim back then.

A gym that was probably very advanced for the times.

We got to see some of the servants quarters that looked very nice, but do we believe all servants got this nice of a space?

The kitchens were enormous with multiple ovens, prep areas, pantries, sinks and a spit to roast meat.

The servant's dining room.

The laundry.

The ironing room.

A giant washing machine for all those linens and such.

How would you like to be a servant who had to climb all those stairs repeatedly throughout the day?

All too soon the tour ended so we made our way out to walk through the lavish gardens.

They were setting up for a wedding and I can't imagine a more beautiful setting.

Some day there will be a picture of me (lol).

The conservatory was filled with plants from around the world.

Can you even imagine having a place like this?

By now we were famished and it was time to drive over to another part of the estate, Antler Hill, to find some lunch and prepare for the second part of the day.