The Biltmore House is a French-style, Chateauesque mansion located in Asheville, North Carolina. Built between 1889 and 1895, it was designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt for George Washington Vanderbilt II and his wife, Edith Vanderbilt. The house, which sits at the center of a 125,000-acre estate, was named after the Vanderbilt family’s place of origin in the Netherlands. Today, it is the largest private residence in the United States, boasting a 178,926 square foot interior floor space.
Frederick Law Olmsted designed the estate’s landscape, which was previously in poor condition with small farms. The estate also features a redesign of the nearby small railroad town known as Best, which is now called Biltmore Village. The village was fashioned to resemble a rural French medieval village, and features Norman-style cottages, various shops, a train station, a hospital, and a school for the families of workers at the estate.
The grounds around the estate include a walled garden, rose garden, gardener’s cottage, and a conservatory featuring various tropical plants that would not naturally grow in the local climate. Closer to the house, there is a large south terrace enclosed by a rusticated retaining wall, which has a gazebo at the southwest corner. East of the terrace is the Italian Garden, featuring a formal layout, fountains, and Italian-style sculptures. In front of the house is a large lawn, which runs east to the Esplanade, a stone wall with a series of stairs and ramps that switchback to an upper lawn. West of the house is a grassy knoll that provides unobstructed views of the surrounding mountains.
The Biltmore House features elements from various historic French Chateaux, including the stair tower and hipped roofs of the Chateau Royal de Blois, as well as various elements from the Chateau de Chenonceau, Chateau de Chambord, and Waddesdon Manor. The house features a facade clad in Indiana Limestone, with Gothic details, leaded glass windows, casement windows, and double-hung windows.
Inside, the house features luxurious finishes, including carved woodwork, intricate plaster details, electric lighting and steam heat, multiple fireplaces, a large kitchen and laundry in the basement, many guest rooms, a massive four-story chandelier in the grand staircase, a basement swimming pool, bowling alley, and gymnasium, a large grand banquet hall, bedrooms for staff, and a two-story library. The house is decorated with antiques and decorations sourced from the Vanderbilts’ many international excursions and antique dealers, as well as lots of art.
The Biltmore House was opened for public tours in 1930, and was utilized to store 62 paintings and 17 sculptures from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC during World War II. Asheville was believed to be a safe haven for the artwork in the event that the United States was invaded by a foreign military. The estate was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1963 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.
Today, the house is owned by the Cecil family, descendants of Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil, George and Edith Vanderbilt’s only child. It is utilized as a museum and open to tours, with the 8,000 remaining acres of the estate having been developed with tourist amenities, including the conversion of the estate’s various barns into museums, restaurants, and a winery, as well as the construction of a luxury hotel, shops, and additional support facilities. The estate now draws nearly 2 million visitors every year, making it a major tourist attraction.