The Biltmore Estate — Now, that's fancy! — To whoever is not listening to the sea

In the 19th century, Cornelius Vanderbilt turned a $100 loan (not $1M!) into a fortune by investing heavily in railroads. This fortune would allow his grandson, George, to build the largest home in America, the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.

The Biltmore Estate, a 250-room home with expansive acreage, opened to friends and family on Christmas Eve in 1895, after six years of construction. In 1916, the family sold 86,000 acres of land on the Estate to the federal government; it is now the Pisgah National Forest.

The Estate became a business in 1930, (250 rooms are not cheap to keep up!) when it opened to the public for tours. These days, it is open 365 days a year (wish I was kidding) and costs $65-75/per person to get into the house, grounds and winery. Audio or guided tours are $10-20 extra. The experience is like a refined amusement park...be prepared for shuttles, lines, and, of course, a picture of your party available for purchase.

We swallowed hard, bought our tickets and took lots of pictures! Enjoy!

The Estate Entrance

When guests stayed at the Biltmore starting in 1895, it took them about 1.5 hours to ride from the first gate to the entrance of the house. Frederick Olmstead, the landscape designer for the Estate (who also designed Central Park) was responsible for that. He purposely crafted the journey to increase the awe experienced by guests when they finally arrived at the house. We only took a short shuttle ride from the parking lot to the house, but still found it pretty awesome. Mission accomplished, Frederick!

The shuttle buses in all the pictures are annoying. But on the positive side, as Curt noted, they do provide a good sense of just how huge the place is.

Front of the home, with Italian gardens at left.

Inside the House

At this point, we'd like to give a shout out to Curt's Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge phone (not the one that catches on fire). It makes low-light interior photos possible! We did our best to shoot over people's heads and around all the staff decorating for Christmas...please excuse the weird angles!

First Floor

Entrance/Winter Garden (that just means it's inside)

Banquet Hall - comes complete with organ!

Loggia — basically, the nicest back porch we've ever seen.

Second Floor — The Family's Living Space

The second floor was for the family, with bedrooms and living space for George, his wife, Edith and their daughter.

Living Hall for the family. The painting at left is by John Singer Sergeant and depicts the home's architect, Richard Morris Hunt.

George Vanderbilt's bedroom. They said the bed looks small, but isn't.

Sitting Room - the piece in the corner is ebony.

Third Floor — For Guests

The third floor was for guests, essentially functioning as a hotel.

Where's the bathroom in this place? Actually there were 43 of them, which can be identified by looking for a marble trim piece visible from the hallway.

Living Hall...guests hung out here before meals. They reportedly served chips & salsa.

Basement

The basement was for recreation and housed the servant's bedrooms, work areas, kitchen and laundry.

This hall reveals the foundation of the house, which took two years to build and is 29 feet deep.

POOL - There were no chemicals to treat the pool water, so it was filled with spring water, heated from the steamer, and drained immediately after use.

Friends and family spent a few weeks painting the basement in 1924 for a New Year's Eve party.

Library and South Terraces

Curt decided when we build our tiny house, it should have a terrace like this...only, you know, smaller and probably without the statues.

View from the Library Terrace.  The entire back of the home provides views of Mt Pisgah and what is now Pisgah National Forest. — View from the Library Terrace. The entire back of the home provides views of Mt Pisgah and what is now Pisgah National Forest.

Looking back at the house from the South Terrace.

The Walled Garden & Conservatory

This might have been our favorite place. The Conservatory had lots of cactus and orchids, and many other flowers unlike anything we'd ever seen! We can't name them for you, because unfortunately, most of them were unmarked.