Biltmore Estates in Asheville, NC

Monday, June 27, 2016

Wow, today is actually July 11, 2016 and I'm just posting June 27.  I'm really behind and hope to make some progress today.

Isabel and I are heading into Asheville to see the Biltmore Estates.  It should be a fun girls day!

George Washington Vanberbilt designed and managed construction of this 250-room French Renaissance chateau over a six-year period.  This was to be their country home.  The finished home contains over four acres of floor space, including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. The estate encompasses around 8,000 acres.

The following pictures are of various rooms.  The theme while we were visiting was wedding dresses.  There was at least one wedding dress in each room.  Some worn in actual weddings held on the grounds and others were wedding dresses used in movies filmed in the house.  I am not including many of the dresses.  The house was much more fascinating to me.

This is the main dining hall on the first floor.

This mural was over one of the first floor fireplaces.  It is extremely detailed.  All I could show is the immense size.

Our beautiful granddaughter, Isabel on one of the porches.  What a view behind her.

This is the library.  It housed only about half of the books owned.  He was an avid reader.

This is the Oak Room where Edith and George would meet every morning for breakfast and plan their day.

This is one of the many guest bathrooms.  Keep in mind this house was finished in 1895.  Amazing!

This is a guest bedroom.

This is looking from the 3rd floor down through the main stairwell.

Here we are in the basement with the rock walled corridors.  The basement housed the bowling alley; swimming pool; exercise room; laundry rooms (3); several walk-in refrigerators; several walk-in freezers; and the servants quarters, including their kitchen and dining area. I think I remembered everything.

Indoor 2-lane bowling alley.

Swimming pool with a 2-level diving platform.

Both the pictures above and below are of the exercise room.

Servants kitchen.

This is one of the 3 laundry rooms.  

There was much more on the second level, like the bachelor guest quarters which included a pool room and gun room.  I decided not to include any more indoor pictures.

These water lillies (both above and below) were in the gardens just to the left as you walked out of the house.

As you look straight out the front of the house, there was the fountain in the first pictures.  This is taken from the fountain looking farther out.  Up the hill was covered pavilion with statues. The bus in the photo helps to show the size of the grounds, and this is only a small part.

This is part of the zig zag walkway.  Isn't the brickwork beautiful!

In the middle section were these beautiful fountains.  As you can tell, we walked up the zig zag concrete walkway to the hill.  It was already over 90 degrees with probably 90% humidity.  We decided it was too hot to go any further.

This is looking back at the Biltmore house from the middle section of the walkway.  The grounds are mowed beautifully.

This is the conservatory from one of the surrounding gardens.  


The following pictures are of some of the beautiful and unusual flowers and trees inside the conservatory.

Isabel is taking a close-up of this interesting plant.  See below.

After we left the conservatory, we had lunch then visited a new dear friend, Rachael in Asheville.  After our visit, we did a little shopping then headed home.  It was 5pm before we got back home.  It was full but fun day!