The Biltmore Estate — Connecting the Vanderbilts to the South

Tucked away from the busy streets of Asheville, North Carolina, sits a summer house the owner lovingly called his “little Mountain Escape.” The main house has a measly 4 acres of indoor floor space (yes, I said acres). In the 1880s, George Washington Vanderbilt II, as a young boy vacationing with his mother, fell in love with the Asheville area.

Today, the massive 250-room French-Renaissance-inspired chateau commissioned by George Vanderbilt is owned by his 4th and 5th-generation descendants, making the Biltmore house the largest privately owned house in the United States and the whole estate, a National Historic Landmark.

The vast wealth of the Vanderbilts during that time is impossible for me to comprehend. I find it difficult to pity George Vanderbilt’s brother, who was quoted by Forbes Magazine as having said, “Inherited wealth is a real handicap to happiness … It has left me with nothing to hope for, with nothing definite to seek or strive for.”

To begin to create the Biltmore Estate, George Vanderbilt bought over 700 parcels of land in and around the Shiloh community. The acquisition included 5 cemeteries and over 50 farms totaling 125,000 acres (195 square miles). One of the acquired cemeteries is the resting place of Benjamin and Hannah Hawkins, who, along with their 13 children, were among the first to settle in Buncombe County, NC.

In 1914, Edith Vanderbilt, George Vanderbilt’s widow, sold 87,000 acres of the Biltmore Estate to the federal government for $5.00 an acre. This tract is now known as the Pisgah National Forest. Eight thousand acres of beautiful land remain today in the Biltmore Estate.

Before plans were drawn and construction of the house began, George Vanderbilt had a very tall ladder-type apparatus built to allow him to see panoramic views of the estate and place the house at just the right angle to maximize the breathtaking North Carolina vistas all around. Construction on the main house, with its 178,926 sq ft. of floor space, began in 1889 and continued for more than 7 years at a total cost of $5 million for the house alone.

A short railroad spur from the Southern Railway depot to the building site of the Biltmore house was laid to transport workers and materials for the huge build; it was demolished when the building was complete. A wide variety of craftsmen and workers were needed; with the stonecutters being described as the elite group of the construction team and riding in the better train cars; others rode on top of building materials in flat cars.

Money was no object to George Washington Vanderbilt II, as the indoor swimming pool, 10,000-book library, 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, billiards room, bowling alley, and many hidden passageways leading to secret rooms were designed and built.

Original Monets and Renoirs, along with an ivory chess set and game table once owned by Napoleon Bonaparte, are almost lost among the 92,000 pieces of art and valuable collections in the Biltmore. The chess set and game table were gifts to George Washington Vanderbilt II upon turning 21.

He named the house “Biltmore” using the name of his ancestor’s place of origin in the Netherlands, “De Bilt” and the Anglo-Saxon word Mór, meaning rolling land.

On Christmas Eve, the Vanderbilts invited family and friends to the grand opening of their new vacation house, although construction was not complete at the time. It took a huge staff to run and maintain the house and grounds. On the fourth floor are 21 small rooms that housed “most” of the maid/household staff.

Today, the city of Ashville has over 100,000 residents, and the healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing industries support the bulk of the economy. The annual income from all the Biltmore properties is estimated at $50 million, with much of that needed for maintenance of the house and properties.

No one has lived in the Biltmore house since the 1950s, and the estate now employs approximately 2,000 people. The Biltmore Estate connects the famous New York Vanderbilt family to the South, where a stroll over the grounds makes us all understand why they chose that beautiful place so many years ago.

DID YOU KNOW?

The original builder of the Biltmore Estate, George Vanderbilt, and his wife booked passage on the Titanic. They were warned by a family member to cancel the trip. Maiden voyages were sometimes difficult as all sorts of problems might occur. They cancelled their tickets but not in time to retrieve their luggage which went down with the Titanic. George’s nephew, Alfred, also canceled his trip on the Titanic. His cancellation was not discovered by some newsgroups, and he was mistakenly listed as a victim of the Titanic. Alfred Vanderbilt purchased a ticket on the Lusitania. He died on that voyage when the Lusitania sank in 1915.

1st Generation to build the Vanderbilt fortune:

Cornelius Vanderbilt, the shipping and railroad tycoon, was born in New York in 1794. While working as a pilot on a passenger boat, he borrowed $100 from his mother to start a business in NY. Later, one of the many companies he owned transported fortune-seekers traveling from New York and New Orleans to San Francisco during the 1849 California Gold Rush. A quote from Forbes Magazine: Cornelius to his son, William Henry (Billy) Vanderbilt, “Any fool can make a fortune: it takes a man of brains to hold onto it.”

2nd Generation to increase the Vanderbilt fortune:

When he died in 1877, he left the family fortune, which was estimated at $100 million, to his son, William Henry Vanderbilt. At the time, that was more than was in the U.S. Treasury. William Henry had doubled the inheritance by the time of his death, just 9 years later.

3rd Generation to build the Biltmore Estate and the demise of the Vanderbilt fortune:

The family fortune was then inherited by his sons, William Kissam Vanderbilt and George Washington Vanderbilt (original owner and builder of the Biltmore Estates in Ashville, NC). Within 30 years, the Vanderbilt fortune had dwindled. George Washington Vanderbilt died in 1914 of complications from an appendectomy. Forty-eight years after Cornelius Vanderbilt’s death, one of his grandchildren died penniless. Fifty years after William Henry Vanderbilt’s death, the Vanderbilt's wealth was gone. The decedents still own and participate in the operations of the Biltmore Estate in Ashville, NC.