Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC

While it was both a wonderful and worthwhile stop, Greenville was merely a stopover to our destination of Asheville, North Carolina. Why Asheville? This quaint little town tucked away in the southern Appalachians is the spot where in 1889 George Vanderbilt began building his masterpiece home, Biltmore. Biltmore is the largest privately owned home in America, still owned and operated by George's descendents, who is also entrepreneur Cornelius Vanderbilt’s grandson. The 250-room mansion (that's 4 acres of indoor floor space!) originally sat on over 125,000 acres of land of which 8,000 are still owned by the estate (about 100,00 acres were dedicated to the Pisgah Forest). With the help of architect Richard Morris Hunt (who also designed the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty, The Breakers, Marble House...) and Frederick Law Olmstead (also known as the founding father of American landscape architecture who among other things designed New York's Central Park) George set off to build his masterpiece which opened six years later in 1895. The tour took us through many of the formal living areas, George and then his wife Edith's bedrooms, as well as the bowling alley, indoor swimming pool, and then my favorite, the kitchens, laundry areas, staff quarters - the 'guts' or organs as I like to think of them as without all of the support staff, the house could never subsist. The tour was amazing; we opted for the audio headsets which provided a great narrative. I have to be honest though - by the end, I was exhausted! The depth of Vanderbilt's wealth is a bit dumbfounding and after about 2 hours walking on hard marble, my feet were cooked! After the house tour, we took ourselves outside to tour the stables and the grounds which included an Italian garden, a walled garden, conservatory, esplanade, spring garden and azalea garden (we didn't even have time to get to the deer park, bass pond and lagoon!). The approach road alone must have stretched some 2 miles and was lush with greenery - shrubs and bamboo among some of the plentiful plantings. We finished our visit at the Antler Hill winery which now operates in what used to be the Biltmore Dairy (Mr. Vanderbilt's goal for Biltmore was to create a self-sustaining estate with vegetable and fruit gardens, along with the dairy). The kids and I enjoyed squashing grapes and inside James and I were able to sample some of the winery's best. After a little ice cream, we were on the road to Virginia and DC.