Biltmore

Nicole and I went to Asheville, just under a four hour drive west, to visit Biltmore Estate. The largest private residence in the US, it was built in 1889 and sits on 8,000 acres. The mansion is unique from those I've seen in Europe because it wasn't built to protect from invaders, it wasn't left to ruin before the government restored it, it's not ancient, etc. Vanderbilt's grandson runs it and there is a special atmosphere with the over 2,000 employees that were all exceptionally kind and knowledgeable. The mansion was amazing, but what I especially enjoyed was the enormous and beautiful estate grounds and all there was to do. Guided hikes, fly fishing school, trail rides, you name it. Set in the rolling mountains, with horses in one field, sheep in another, hay in another, you are visiting an estate that is really functioning in many ways and not just wild forest to look at.

 

 

The miles of driveway were specifically made back in the day to relax visitors. There were two famous architects that worked on the estate- one for the house, and one for the grounds.

 

For fall, they had planted hundreds of mums.

 

We stayed next to Antler Village, part of the estate with a barn (more on that later), animals, some places to eat, bike rentals, shopping, etc. It was the strangest feeling to walk somewhere- anywhere- with just my purse and able to go anywhere I wanted to- no diapers, stroller, 100 questions a minute, nap and bottle worries, etc. The peace of having some personal space without a big to-do list to accomplish was amazing.

 

We took a shuttle to the mansion, and the driver and host on the bus reminded me of kind, older tour guides. The shuttle only had a few other couples, all older, so it was fun to talk with everyone as we traveled.

 

We arrived on a Thursday and there weren't any crowds. The weather was lovely 76.

 

Lunch at the Stable Café- we shared a sampler platter and even tried collared greens for the first time. Nicole ate the pickles :) And we both wanted to eat all of the pulled pork.

 

Start of the tour! Everything was decorated for Christmas.

 

They have two Belgian horses bring this enormous tree to the house in a big ceremony earlier in the week (and they do it all again in December so they always have a fresh tree!) This was in the banquet hall. You can see a pipe organ on the right of the picture.

 

The acoustics of the hall were made specifically so that one person at the end of the table (12 seats on each side!) would not have to raise their voice to be heard at the other end.

 

There were dozens of fully decorated, gorgeous trees throughout the home. It was cool that the home was built after electricity was already invented, so the house was built on much more modern terms than what I'd seen in Europe.

 

Beautifully painted ceilings

 

65 fireplaces in the house, and each one with unique, rare or stunning decor

 

View from the side terrace on the main floor (the house sits on a hill such that the back of the house down to the basement has windows, but the front of the house is not elevated from the main road)

 

So many little details like these little musicians

 

Resting on the terrace, enjoying the weather, before continuing the tour.

 

The library is a main feature of the home since Vanderbilt loved books. There was an entrance from where the guests slept as well so they could grab a book before retiring. I tried peeking at the books (they are the real books from his collection!) and there were travelogues from some countess, histories, and some I had no clue what they were from the title.

 

One of the seemingly million priceless treasures of the house- a Ming vase. You can kind of see the stairway that curves around to the second floor of the library. Apparently they can only show a portion of his book collection here, he loved books!

 

 

 

A long drawing room to visit in. The three beautiful tapestries, religious in theme, were hand woven and took 5 years to plan and 5 years to make. Hard to imagine such an effort!

 

View from bottom of stairs. Very cool chandeliers all connected and gave electric light.

 

The windows along the stairs are slanted.

 

Room connecting the suites for Mr and Mrs Vanderbilt. So many beautiful details.

 

Love the ceiling!

 

Just another priceless cupboard in the back.

 

Mrs. Vanderbilt's room was shaped like an oval, even the door was curved.

 

Nicole really wants a fainting couch in her room too :)

 

The not-so-grand stairs at the other end of the house.

 

One of the most unique fireplaces

 

The downstairs hall

 

First home to have private bowling alley

 

Basement pool with heating was a marvel for the time

 

It has a leak, but those lights are original and were underwater

 

The kitchen! Those copper pots and pans are the ones the household used, you can see some dents and it was cool to see how little has changed in some ways.

 

Dumbwaiter with electric buttons- another cool thing that was halfway to modern times.

 

Nicole in the gift shop with a life size nutcracker

 

Amazing pergola on the side of the house.

 

We rested our tired feet in a garden with three ponds that had lots of goldfish. We had bought a chocolate each from their confectionary and in the lovely weather just enjoyed the view.

 

After a late afternoon rest in our room, we walked around the "village" behind the hotel.

 

We had dinner at a restaurant named after the family's favorite dog "Cedric". Nicole did the children's audio tour of the house and it was so cute because they made it from the perspective of the dog and with a cute doggy voice. Nicole was laughing during her tour, I think next time I'll listen to the kids version!

 

Trying something new for appetizer, gnocci and butternut squash with our pretzel rolls

 

The best steak I've ever had. Melt in your mouth, I could cut it with a butter knife. Nicole had fish and chips along with fruit.

 

Festive lights and Christmas carols (they start their Christmas festivities this weekend!)

 

We sampled some grape juice from the Biltmore vineyard. Had some good discussion with Nicole about the Word of Wisdom too. We brought home some sparkling grape juice for the family :)

 

And last stop on our first day was to get a kids scoop of ice cream.

 

The lobby had a wooden tic tac toe game and it was so fun that with just the two of us we could have fun and play a few rounds whenever we walked by.

 

Unlimited breakfast (we got free tickets, breakfasts, audio tours thanks to an online booking error that Jim needed to call them for). The hotel restaurant is farm to table and the food was very good. We saved the fruit for an afternoon snack in our room's fridge :) 

 

The next day we went right when it opened. We didn't do the audio tour and went straight through and were able to look over the rooms again with prettymuch the place to ourselves since most everyone else was listening to the audio lecture at each room. I enjoyed talking with some of the employees set in different rooms that had really expensive stuff and we noticed a lot we'd missed the day before. Such interesting architecture as well as interesting things inside.

 

Gargoyles. Nicole was sure this made it an evil castle (since the Beast's castle has gargoyles that turn into angels when he becomes human again)

 

The fireplace in the banquet hall was lit and it was beautiful and so welcoming.

 

Morning vista from the terrace.

 

A Steinway piano that a bunch of famous people have played on.

 

Empty grounds we explored while everyone else was still in the house.

 

I took a landscape panoramic shot- it's not a curve but looks that way. You can see from previous picture that it's a straight wall. Such an amazing view, and it's crazy how they precisely planned each view and room for full beauty effect. Very relaxing.

 

Hundreds of mums

 

Morning dew made them sparkle like gems from heaven. So beautiful.

 

Rose gardens

 

Several rose arbors- such big thorns on the bushes at the side!

 

Conservatory

 

Inside it was warm and humid

 

This plant looked painted, there were lots of unique plants.

 

View of home from rose garden.

 

I liked this feminine room filled with white and pink poinsettias and chairs to relax in.

 

Jim texted me regularly about how he was taking the kids to school, yes John was still alive, Diana is at preschool, etc.

 

A highlight of our trip was horseback riding. The stables at Biltmore were an indicator to me of how they treat their animals, employees, grounds, etc. The horses were not overworked, they had lots of days off, and by our hotel was a huge open field where the "retired" horses were allowed to live out their lives in peace and beautiful surroundings (instead of being sold when their use was done). Nicole was completely in charge of her horse- she started and stopped, turned left and right along the trail, did everything!

 

My horse took a few bathroom breaks and apparently loves to get as close as possible to the fence (electric!!) to go. Yikes! Nicole' s horse was Colorado and mine was Murphy, both quarter horses. There were two trail guides. The first one took 6 people while we waited for another couple to come. They never showed, so Nicole and I got a private trail ride (which would have cost loads more) and it was so nice. Amazing how much the guide knew and it was fun to see Nicole asking questions and loving her ride.

 

View from my horse.

 

Nicole and I

 

Nicole and Colorado

 

Saying farewell to the horses.

 

One of those pictures from Jim of the whirlwind at home. I am so grateful I got a chance to emotionally breathe.

 

After our trail ride, we went to Deerpark Restaurant. As with most of our trip, there weren't a lot of people and we got to enjoy an amazing buffet with more food than we could even try. Nicole ate something that was very distasteful to her (cauliflower with some sauce) but she was good and downed it with the assistance of water. She was doing so good trying to be polite!

 

We had to sample a little of each of the desserts :)

 

We came back to our village and toured the barn. Nicole in a buggy- it did not look comfortable despite being "well sprung"

 

They had tons of old farm tools from the era. Again it was interesting to see because they weren't ancient, just old methods.

 

Nicole made a craft of a cup and ball game, along with the two other kids in the whole area.

 

Watching the forge and making of an iron rose.

 

Woodworking- making a biscuit cutter. Nicole had about a two minute attention span at these places (and I kind of did too).

 

Fake horse. We didn't get pics of the goats and chickens, but Nicole saw three eggs the hens had laid and one of the keepers got them and let her hold them. Not much to do with the goats, but they were cute to watch.

 

We had dinner our last night at the same restaurant as the night before, and were serenaded by a guitarist.

 

Ended the night watching Andy Griffith show and some Jeopardy. We had a wonderful two days relaxing, seeing beautiful sights, having adventures and eating yummy food. There was a lot more to do to explore the place, and I realized that so much of Biltmore is about the grounds and atmosphere, not just a fancy house. I liked being at a place that felt safe to be there without Jim, where I could enjoy being outside and have so much to explore with reliable guides, safe horses, maps of hikes, etc. I would totally visit there again to enjoy the whole place and the lovely people there.

 

We had another scrumptious breakfast the next morning. Nicole got a little stuffed Cedric and takes it everywhere with her. We were really missing home and didn't do anything that morning just went straight home. Jim told me I was supposed to take longer so he could get the house totally clean :) I could only think of how much he'd already done and wanted to get back to rescue him!

 

But Jim had things well under control. He made Mike a cleaning "Captain" and the boys cleaned a ton of mess.

 

And Jim is so talented he even cooked hot dogs and mac n cheese at the same time. He texted this to me, telling me how good he is at multitasking :)