*Photo Courtesy of Patriot Getaways.com*Nestled in North Carolina mountains, near the town of Asheville, lies America’s largest privately-owned home – The Biltmore House. This landmark residence has a whopping 175,000 square feet, 250 rooms and 65 fireplaces. Its original owner used to call it his “little mountain escape.”
The Biltmore House was built by George Washington Vanderbilt II, an heir to the Vanderbilt steamship and railroad empire. The house is modeled after several fine chateaus (mansions) in France, and is the finest example of the French Renaissance style in the United States. The construction took six years, started in 1889 and finishing in 1895. This was such an enormous undertaking that a brick factory was purpose-built nearby, as well as three miles of railroad that transported all the building materials to the construction site.
No expense was spared on this lavish home. Some rooms are so large that a small house could fit inside. The Biltmore’s collection of fine art boasts, among other things, a painting by Renoir and a chess set once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte. There is also a private bowling alley and what is thought to be the world’s first indoor swimming pool. The home was quite high-tech for its time too; it features such 19th Century technological marvels as elevators, smoke alarms and an intercom system.
George Washington Vanderbilt II envisioned his home as a self-sustaining estate. He established poultry, hog and cattle farms on his property, and built a village to house people who would work for him. He was also passionate about horticulture and forestry, and in order to properly care for his enormous estate he established America’s first forestry education program. Vanderbilt’s original property of 125,000 acres(!) became the first professionally managed forest in the U.S.
Creating the Biltmore Estate was such an expensive project that it severely depleted Vanderbilt’s inheritance. After his death in 1914, his widow sold most of the land to the U.S. Government, which used it to establish Pisgah National Forest. The house and the remaining 8,000 acres were inherited by Vanderbilt’s daughter Cornelia, who in 1930 opened it to the public in order to help pay for the property’s upkeep. The Biltmore House is still owned by Vanderbilt’s descendants, and over one million people visit it annually.
