At the apex of America’s Gilded Age, as the nation enjoyed the second industrial revolution, prominent families such as the Vanderbilts were constructing lavish palaces around the country. These temples to their own wealth grew increasingly larger as families tried to outdo one another. Winter homes and Summer homes of epic proportions began to spring up in areas such as New York’s Hudson River Valley and Newport, Rhode Island. However, George Washington Vanderbilt II had a different location in mind—North Carolina.
Vanderbilt had grown fond of the majestic mountain scenery of Asheville, North Carolina upon visiting the area with his mother. He dreamed of building a palatial home with monumental gardens in the French and English styles there. To achieve this goal, Vanderbilt enlisted two of the most influential designers of the era: architect Richard Morris Hunt and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead. Both worked with Vanderbilt to realize his dream of a bucolic French village in the mountains of North Carolina.
Construction began in 1889. The mansion was to rise to four stories and would be constructed in a French Châteauesque Style which mimicked the architecture of Sixteenth Century French palaces. With its massive stair-tower, steeply pitched roof and Renaissance-inspired ornamentation, the mansion became the centerpiece of the 125,000 acre estate which also included a working village.
The finished house contained 250 opulent rooms, lavish wood and stonework. At 135,000 square feet, the façade of the house stretches 780 feet at its widest part. Opened in 1895, despite the fact that construction hadn’t been finished, the mansion featured electric light, forced air heating, elevators, centrally controlled clocks and a host of other Victorian technological novelties.
Upkeep of the estate was enormously expensive and is said to have depleted a large portion of Vanderbilt’s fortune. Upon his death, his widow sold 80,000 acres of the original plot of land to the United States government with the understanding that it was not to be developed. The home remains in the Vanderbilt family to this day. It was opened to the public in the 1930’s to help defray the costs of maintaining it, however, members of the family still resided in the house well into the 1960’s. Today, the house and its surrounding land is a thriving tourist attraction which has spawned a rather extensive line of products for the home and garden. For more information visit the Web site for the
Biltmore Estate.
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