Biltmore Estate

 George Vanderbilt was the grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt who amassed a fortune in New York through Steamboats, railroads and various business enterprises. George was born in New York City but did not like the city or the social life there. He visited the Asheville, NC area and liked it so that is where he built his home. George fashioned his Biltmore Estate home after the castles he had seen in Europe.

Biltmore House opened on Christmas Eve 1895 after six years of construction. All the brick and tile used in the house was made on site. The house was on 124,000 acres  and 8,000 acres still exist in the estate. The house has 255 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces. Visitors were frequent and were furnished a map of the first 3 floors including a basement which contained a pool, gym, swimming pool and one of the first residential bowling alleys in the country
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They don't allow pictures to be taken inside the house so this is off the Internet.  It is a picture of the Banquet Hall with its 7 story tall ceiling. Tapestries on the walls were from Europe and were made in the mid-1500s. The oak table seated 38 people for dinner.

The views from the house are wonderful and all you see are trees and hills as far as the eye can see. 

The gardens were just unbelievable!  There is a Water Garden, Italian Garden, Shrub Garden, Spring Garden, Walled Garden, Rose Garden, Azalea Garden and a Conservatory where the orchids, etc are grown.

I love water lilies and take pictures of them every time I find some.  There were some colors here that I had never seen before.

This is in the Walled Garden and you can see the wall in the background. Many of the plants in this garden are replanted 4 times a year.  They had planted many, many mums but they were not opened yet. There are around 250 different roses in the Rose Garden.

Lunch was in the Stable Cafe which is a restaurant in the old stable next to the house. The food was great.

Our booth was literally in an old stall.  You can see the original wall and iron work behind our seats. Behind us, by the back wall, was a sink that held water for a horse and the hay went behind the vertical iron bars at the back. If we look tired, it is because we were!!!!!!! We did the tour of the house that lasted about 2 hours, had lunch, toured the gardens, had some ice cream while we rested, visited the gift shops and called it a day. Sam got us back to the hotel 6 hours after we left the hotel this morning and it was only a 10 minute drive to the Estate.  That is the most time we have spent at any one attraction while on the trip.

Tomorrow we head west and will be staying in Cookeville, TN tomorrow night.