One of the many Vanderbilt Mansions..
Inspired by Classical Sass, BHD, and Susan Christina…
I have a LOVE for “America’s Castles”…
Biltmore Estate is a large (8,000-acre) private estate and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House, the main house on the estate, is a Châteauesque-styled mansion built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States, at 178,926 square feet (16,622.8 m2)[2] of floor space (135,280 square feet (12,568 m2) of living area). Still owned by one of Vanderbilt’s descendants, it stands today as one of the most prominent remaining examples of the Gilded Age. In 2007, it was ranked eighth in America’s Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.( for those who don’t know, Anderson Cooper, the American journalist, is a great grandson of the Vanderbilts..I think great grandson..his mother is Gloria Vanderbilt, and she made headlines when her father passed away and her mother fought for custody.
During the 1930s, she was the subject of a high-profile child custody trial in which her mother, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, and her paternal aunt, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, both sought custody of the child Gloria and control over her $5 million trust fund. The trial, called the “trial of the century” by the press, was the subject of wide, sensational press coverage due to the wealth and notoriety of the involved parties and the scandalous evidence presented to support Whitney’s claim that Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt was an unfit parent.(thank wiki)
George Washington Vanderbilt commissioned prominent New York architect Richard Morris Hunt, who had previously designed houses for various Vanderbilt family members, to design the house in the Châteauesque style, using French Renaissance chateaus that Vanderbilt and Hunt had visited in early 1889, including Château de Blois, Chenonceau and Chambord in France and Waddesdon Manor in England, as inspiration with their steeply pitched roofs, turrets and sculptural ornamentation.
The carved decorations include trefoils, flowing tracery, rosettes, gargoyles, and at prominent lookouts, grotesques.
The staircase is one of the more prominent features of the east facade, with its three-story, highly decorated winding balustrade with carved statues of St. Louis and Joan of Arc by the Austrian-born architectural sculptor Karl Bitter. The stair tower and steeply pitched roofline were inspired by three specific chateaux: Blois, Chenonceau and Chambord.
The Banquet Hall is the largest room in the house, measuring 42 feet wide and 72 feet long, with a 70-foot-high barrel-vaulted ceiling. The table could seat 64 guests surrounded by rare Flemish tapestries and a triple fireplace that spans one end of the hall.
Some of the more lavish guest bedrooms can be found on this floor as well, including the Louis XVI Bedroom and the Louis XV Suite. The suite of rooms includes the Damask Room; the Claude Room, named after one of Vanderbilt’s favorite artists, Claude Lorrain; the Tyrolean Chimney Room; and the most grand, the Louis XV Room, so named due to its architectural scheme and furnishings that were very popular in the late nineteenth century.
The second floor is accessed by the cantilevered Grand Staircase of 102 steps spiraling around a four-story, wrought-iron chandelier holding 72 light bulbs. The Second Floor Living Hall is an extension of the grand staircase as a formal hall and portrait gallery, and was restored to its original configuration in 2013. Several large-scale masterpieces are displayed in the hall, including two John Singer Sargent portraits of Biltmore’s architect, Richard Morris Hunt, and landscaper, Frederick Law Olmsted, both commissioned for the home by Vanderbilt. Located nearby in the south tower is George Vanderbilt’s gilded bedroom with furniture designed by Hunt. His bedroom connects to his wife’s Louis XV-style, oval-shaped bedroom in the north tower through a Jacobean carved oak paneled sitting room with an intricate plaster ceiling.
The third floor has a number of guest rooms with names that describe the furnishing or artist that they were decorated with. The fourth floor has 21 bedrooms that were inhabited by housemaids, laundresses, and other female servants. Also included on the fourth floor is an Observatory with a circular staircase that leads to a wrought iron balcony with doorways to the rooftop where Vanderbilt could view his estate.
The Billiard Room is decorated with an ornamental plaster ceiling and rich oak paneling and was equipped with both a custom-made pool table and a carom table (table without pockets). The room was mainly frequented by men, but ladies were welcome to enter as well. Secret door panels on either side of the fireplace lead to the private quarters of the Bachelors’ Wing where female guests and staff members were not allowed. The wing includes the Smoking Room, that was fashionable for country houses, and the Gun Room which held mounted trophies and displayed George Vanderbilt’s gun collection.
Guests of the estate could enjoy other activities that were found on the basement level, including an indoor 70,000-gallon (265,000-litre and 265-cubic meter) heated swimming pool with underwater lighting; The service hub of the house is also found in the largest basement in the US, as the location for the main kitchen, pastry kitchen, rotisserie kitchen, walk-in refrigerators that provided an early form of mechanical refrigeration, the servants’ dining hall, laundry rooms and additional bedrooms for staff.
It also boasts one of the nation’s first bowling alleys installed in a private residence; and a gymnasium with once state-of-the-art fitness equipment.
The website for the Biltmore Estates states “The luxurious family home of George and Edith Vanderbilt is a marvel of elegance and charm, as magnificent today as it was more than a century ago. Your self-guided house visit spans three floors and the basement. You’ll see displays of vintage clothing, accessories, art, furniture, and more that tell stories and illustrate the lives of the Vanderbilt family, their guests, and employees.”
If you would like a visual tour, here is a five (5)minute video…enjoy…
all information was obtained by wiipedia (thanks wiki)
