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Biltmore Estate is a historic house museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. The main residence is the Biltmore House (or Biltmore Mansion), a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895. It is the largest privately owned house in the United States at of floor space and of living area.Buncombe County Tax Records, http://www.buncombetax.org/ , Parcel ID 9637-94-40-00000, Residential Building 22 (mansion) and Commercial Building 9 (attached stable); see also http://www.biltmore.com/visit/house_gardens/house/faq.asp It is still owned by George Vanderbilt's descendants and remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded Age mansions.
Construction of the house began in 1889. A woodworking factory and brick kiln were built on site, and a railroad spur was constructed to bring materials to the building site. Construction on the main house required the labor of about 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons. Vanderbilt made extensive trips overseas during construction to purchase thousands of furnishings, including tapestries, carpets, prints, linens, and decorative objects dating from the 15th century to the late 19th century. Among the few American-made items were the more practical oak drop-front desk, rocking chairs, walnut grand piano, and bronze candlesticks.
Vanderbilt initiated the sale of to the federal government, stressed by Congressional passage of income tax and the expensive maintenance of the estate. He died unexpectedly in 1914 of complications from an emergency appendectomy, and his widow completed the sale. She carried out her husband's wish that the land remain pristine and that property become the nucleus of the Pisgah National Forest. She then began consolidating her interests, selling Biltmore Estate Industries in 1917 and Biltmore Village in 1921. She intermittently occupied the house, living in an apartment created in the former Bachelors' Wing, until the marriage of her daughter Cornelia to John Francis Amherst Cecil in April 1924. The Cecils had two sons who were born at Biltmore in the same room where their mother was born.
Cornelia and her husband opened Biltmore to the public at the request of the City of Asheville in March 1930, in an attempt to bolster the estate's finances during the Great Depression. The city hoped to revitalize the area with tourism.
Biltmore closed from 1941 to 1945 during World War II. In 1942, 62 paintings and 17 sculptures were moved to the estate by train from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to protect them in the event of an attack on the United States. The Music Room on the first floor was never finished, so it was used for storage until 1944, when the possibility of an attack became more remote. Among the works stored were the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and works by Rembrandt, Raphael, and Anthony van Dyck. Gallery director David Finley was a friend of Edith Vanderbilt and had stayed at the estate.
The Cecils divorced in 1934. Cornelia left the estate never to return, but John Cecil maintained his residence in the Bachelors' Wing until his death in 1954. Their eldest son George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil occupied rooms in the wing until 1956. At that point, Biltmore House ceased to be a family residence and was operated as a historic house museum. Their younger son William A. V. Cecil Sr. returned to the estate in the late 1950s and partnered with his brother to manage its financial trouble. They worked to create the profitable and self-sustaining enterprise that their grandfather had envisioned.
William Cecil turned over control of the company to his son William A. V. Cecil Jr. in 1995, while celebrating the estate's centenary. The Biltmore Company is privately held. Of the that make up Biltmore Estate, only are within the city limits of Asheville, and the Biltmore House is not part of any municipality.2017 Buncombe County property and tax records
The estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963, and remains a major tourist attraction in western North Carolina, with around 1.4 million visitors each year.
William A. V. Cecil died in October 2017, and his wife Mimi died the following November. Their daughter Dini Pickering serves as board chairman, and their son Bill Cecil as serves as chief executive officer. The house is assessed at $157.2 million, although county property taxes are paid on only $79.1 million due to an agricultural deferment.
The estate was temporarily closed after Hurricane Helene in September 2024. The group sales office was destroyed, but the Biltmore House, conservatory, and several structures survived without serious damage. The estate's operators subsequently pledged $2 million for hurricane recovery efforts in Western North Carolina. Biltmore Estate reopened in November 2024.
The south facade is the house's smallest and is dominated by three large dormers on the east side and a polygonal turret on the west. An arbor is attached to the house and is accessed from the library, which is located on the ground floor. On the north end of the house, Hunt placed the attached stables, carriage house and its courtyard to protect the house and gardens from the wind. The complex housed Vanderbilt's prized driving horses. The carriage house opposite the stables stored his twenty carriages in addition to any of his guests' carriages.
The rear western elevation is less elaborate than the front facade, with some windows not having any decoration at all. Two matching polygonal towers in the center are connected to the polygonal south turret by an open loggia that opens the main rooms of the house to the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. The loggia is decorated overhead with terracotta tiles set in a herringbone pattern. The self-supporting ceramic tile vault and arch system was used extensively inside and outside of Biltmore, and was patented by Rafael Guastavino, a Spanish architect and engineer who personally supervised the installation. The limestone columns were carved to reflect the sunlight in aesthetically pleasing and varied ways per Vanderbilt's wish. The rusticated base is a contrast to the smooth limestone used on the remainder of the house.
The steeply pitched roof is punctuated by sixteen chimneys and covered with slate tiles that were affixed one by one. Each tile was drilled at the corners and wired onto the attic's steel infrastructure. Copper flashing was installed at the junctions to prevent water from penetrating. The fanciful flashing on the ridge of the roof was embossed with George Vanderbilt's initials and motifs from his family crest, though the original gold leaf no longer survives.
To the left of the entrance hall is the long Tapestry Gallery, which leads to the Library, featuring three 16th-century tapestries representing The Triumph of Virtue Over Vice. Elsewhere on the walls are family portraits by John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini, and James Whistler. The two-story Library contains over 10,000 volumes in eight languages, reflecting George Vanderbilt's broad interests in classic literature as well as works on art, history, architecture, and gardening. The library also houses a concealed passageway that leads to the guest rooms.
The second-floor balcony is accessed by an ornate walnut spiral staircase. The Baroque detailing of the room is enhanced by the rich walnut paneling and the ceiling painting, The Chariot of Aurora, brought to Biltmore by Vanderbilt from the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, Italy. The painting by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini is the most important work by the artist still in existence.
The suite of rooms includes:
Another important aspect of the landscaping was the intentionally rustic four-mile (5 km) Approach track that began at the brick and pebbledash stucco Lodge Gate at the edge of Biltmore Village and ended at the sphinx-topped stone pillars at the Esplanade. In between, the lane was densely planted along the borders with natural and uncultivated-looking foliage and shrubbery to provide a relaxing journey for guests. Olmsted made sure to incorporate of , which had been requested by Vanderbilt for the grounds directly surrounding the house. He constructed a Roman gardens, a formal garden, a bush and tulip garden, water fountains, and a conservatory with individual rooms for palms and roses. There was also a bowling green, an outdoor tea room, and a terrace to incorporate the European statuary that Vanderbilt had brought back from his travels. At the opposite end of the Esplanade is the italic=yes (French for "gentle/soft ramp"), a graduated stairway zigzagging along a rough-cut limestone wall that leads to the grassy slope known as the Vista, topped with a statue of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.
Water was an important aspect of Victorian landscaping, and Olmsted incorporated two elements for the estate: the Bass Pond created from an old creek-fed Mill pond and the Lagoon. Each was used for guest recreation such as fishing and rowing. To supply water for the estate, Olmsted engineered two reservoirs. One was a spring-fed man-made lake on nearby Busbee Mountain. The other was a man-made, brick-lined reservoir, located behind the statue of Diana in the Vista, at an elevation of approximately above the Esplanade.
Intending the estate to be self-supporting, Vanderbilt set up scientific forestry programs, poultry farms, cattle farms, hog farms, and dairy. His wife, Edith, also enthusiastically supported agricultural reform and promoted the establishment of a state agricultural fair. In 1901, the Vanderbilts provided financial assistance to Biltmore Industries, started by Biltmore Village resident Eleanor Vance, which taught young people how to make hand-carved furniture, woven baskets, homespun wool fabric, and more.
The estate today covers approximately and is split in half by the French Broad River. The estate is overseen by The Biltmore Company, a trust set up by the family. The company is a large enterprise that is one of the largest employers in the Asheville area. Restaurants were opened in 1979, 1987, and 1995, and four gift shops in 1993. The former dairy barn was converted into the Biltmore Winery in 1985. The 210-room luxury hotel, named The Inn on Biltmore Estate, opened in 2001. In 2010, the estate opened Antler Hill Village, consisting of shops and restaurants, as well as a remodeled winery, and connected farmyard. In 2015, the Village Hotel on Biltmore Estate, a more casual option to The Inn with 209 rooms, was opened in Antler Hill Village.
The Hallmark Channel movie A Biltmore Christmas was filmed at Biltmore House in January 2023, and was first aired the following November, being the first movie to be set at Biltmore House. The non-fiction book The Last Castle by Denise Kiernan details the estate's history.
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