During the height of the Gilded Age, George Washington Vanderbilt set out to build the largest
house to ever be constructed in the United States. Hi everyone, Ken here, welcome to "ThisHouse" !!!
George had been born into one of, if not the greatest of fortunes the New World had ever seen.
He purchased 195 square miles of land near Ashville, North Carolina and hired prominent
landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead to not only plan the view shed and formal gardens,
but to make the estate self-sustaining by including dozens of farms. While Olmstead was
hard at work creating the perfect landscape, George hired famed Gilded Age architect,
Richard Morris Hunt to design a mansion, the likes of which the country had never seen before.
When it was all said and done, the mansion, which would be named The Biltmore,
would boast over 178,000 square feet with 250 rooms, 35 bedrooms, and 43 bathrooms.
Just to give you an idea of the shear size- if you were to layout the rooms on one level,
they would cover more than 4 acres of floor space.
The 4 story mega mansion was planned to be nestled in the hills, becoming part of the ridgeline.
Construction started in 1889 and stretched on for 6 years with over 1,000 workers laboring every
day on site. The brick walls were reinforced with a steel frame and the façade was clad
in Indiana Limestone which was brought to the property by way of a private railroad.
Entering the home through the vestibule, we arrive in the Main Hall,
clad in limestone and set at larger than life proportions.
To the side, natural light penetrates the deep
interiors through the Winter Garden’s glass paned ceiling.
And just beyond this space, we will find the largest room in the house, The Banquet Hall.
From end to end it measures 72 feet long with barrel vaulted ceilings soaring 70 feet over head.
When the table is assembled with its many leaves, it can comfortably accommodate 64 dinner guests
in front of the triple fireplace finished out with intricate, figurative relief work.
On the opposite wall, a built in pipe organ was meant to bellow,
echoing live music through the mansion’s cavernous halls.
Though this is not where the Vanderbilts would have dined when they were not entertaining,
instead, they would have sat in the breakfast room towards the rear of
the house, a more intimate space when compared to the Banquet Hall.
While we are here, we can take a peek behind the scenes to find the kitchen and the Pantry.
Of course, a family living a life of unfathomable luxury would not have prepared their own meals.
Their live-in staff would have catered to their every need.
Cutting across the rear of the house, we will pass from the breakfast room into the salon,
decorated with antique European furnishings which
George had collected while the Biltmore was being constructed.
This will lead us into the music room,
clad in half height oak paneling below hand stenciled beams running along the ceiling.
From here we will dodge the Main hall and explore the other wing of the house,
making our way into the gallery, which stretches 90 feet from end to end with
a collection of centuries old Flemish tapestries.
The gallery terminates on the Library housing over
10,000 volumes on its shelves. It is clad in walnut panels and designed in the baroque style,
even featuring a ceiling mural which had been stripped from a building in Italy
and reinstalled intact, a true marvel of not only art, but logistics for accomplishing such a feat.
Though we have already covered a space larger than the White
House, we still have not seen the entire first floor.
The billiards room, clad in Oak paneling below a dazzling array
of artisan plaster work on the ceiling, offered a retreat for
George Vanderbilt’s male friends through the hidden passage on the back wall.
This leads to the smoking room and eventually to the bachelor wing where single gentlemen
guests would have been sequestered away from the ladies of the house.
Now we can begin making our way up the grand, cantilevered staircase, rotating around a double
hung chandelier which has been suspended from an ornate, rib vaulted medallion on the ceiling.
The iron balustrade seamlessly curves with the steps and is capped off by a wood hand rail,
adding just the right amount of warmth to the stone atrium.
Up here we will find the bedrooms of both George and his wife, Edith.
First we will explore George’s room finished out with a painted cornice
above a dentilated plate rail. All of the furnishings are upholstered
in a striking red and paired with antique, wooden furniture.
This opens into the Oak Sitting Room which adjoins to Edith’s room on the other end,
providing a private retreat for the couple.
Edith’s bedroom is the grandest bedroom in the house with gold
walls and painted millwork. It was finished out in the Louis
the 15th style with only the finest and most expensive furnishings to spoil her.
We can continue up the back staircase towards the third floor where guests would stayed.
In the third floor living hall, we can imagine one of the many resident musicians playing songs
in the morning to gently wake guests from their slumber. And at night, before turning in for bed,
they could have cozied up to the fireplace in an overstuffed chair and read a book under
an electric light, something which was almost unheard of at the time.
We will skip the fourth floor as it was reserved for staff and wind our way down to the basement.
Down here we will find an indoor pool, once again, illuminated with electric lights.
And after making our way through stone tunnels, we will find more amenities.
Such as a gymnasium boasting the best work out equipment that money could buy in the late 1800s.
The Biltmore passed down through the family over the generations,
eventually being reduced to rest on only 8,000 of its original acres. In the modern day,
the Biltmore remains privately owned by George’s descendants and is open
to the public as a house museum where over 100,000 people venture annually to admire
the height of architecture and landscaping from the bygone era of America’s Gilded Age.
If you have ever visited I would love to read about your experience down below in
the comments section, and if you connected with a certain room or feature in this video,
let me know about it. As always, thank you for watching and make sure to hit that
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