Biltmore House and Gardens / Biltmore Estate, Biltmore-Asheville North Carolina

BILTMORE ESTATE
Biltmore-Asheville North Carolina
OPEN TO VISITORS
Biltmore House From The Esplanade
Approached from the Biltmore Lodge Gate of Biltmore Estate, along a three-mile drive of paved roads which wind their way through plantations of flowering shrubs and forests of pine, hemlock and hardwood, Biltmore House, for nearly half a century unique among the great country houses of America, comes into view with almost startling suddenness. A sharp turn through the wrought iron gates of the north entrance gives one the first view of the magnificent mansion completed by George W. Vanderbilt in 1895.
Banquet Hall and Its Triple Fireplace
Following in many details the lines of French Renaissance chateaux, particularly those of Blois and Chambord, Biltmore House was designed by Richard M. Hunt, of New York. The landscape setting of the mansion and the estate was planned by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park, New York, and executed under the direction of C. D. Beadle, for more than sixty years Superintendent of the Estate. By many, the great estate surrounding the mansion is believed to be the finest example of landscape design in America.
The visitor can profitably study the exterior of the mansion before passing through the main portal. The structure has a frontage of 780 feet. The breadth of the house, from the main door to the west front, is 150 feet. The facade rises in three distinct levels, graduated from portals to finials. The characteristic French peaked roof, with its dormer windows and lofty chimneys, relieves any tendency toward severity. The walls are of hand-tooled Indiana limestone; the roof is of slate.
Biltmore House, begun in 1890, was completed and opened in 1895 after five years of intensive construction. Special railroad tracks were laid from what is now Biltmore station to the site—three miles away—for the conveyance of the great mass of construction material required. Hundreds of skilled artisans from various parts of this country and Europe worked unremittingly, while other hundreds of laborers from the mountain sections of North Carolina were given steady employment during the period of construction.