Weather - High 70 / Sunny and Hot
(Kelly) - We decided to drive to Asheville to see the Biltmore Estate. There was a discussion about whether Natalie would enjoy this trip or not. In the end, Krista decided to stay home with Natalie. Krista will have to tell the journal about her day with Natalie, but we did see her pictures.
We stopped by the Wellness Center on our way out of the resort to buy the tickets online, which would get us $5.00 off the regular price. Turns out kids under 9 were free all the time and kids 9-16 were free due to the time of the year The peak season for Biltmore starts in a few weeks. We ordered the tickets online and had them held for us to pick up. We got some quick verification on the directions to Asheville and we were off. I was driving.
Once through the long and winding roads back to I-26 the van could finally go faster than 45 mph again for the first time in several days, and in a fairly straight line. But the van still had its work cut out for it. Most of the trip on I-26 was up and down hills. It is very much like the interstate through the Chattanooga area. I was slow to get up the hills. It was faster going down, but then the semis were on my tail trying to build up speed for the next hill up. I had to keep changing lanes to stay out of the way. The van did its best, but some of the problems could have been operator error. On the way, I saw an exit that said it was for Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. The exit was not close to the exit we took off of I-26 to get to our resort. The CR/LL exit seemed like it would be a shorter way and more direct.
We took the exit for I-40 as directed on the back of the Biltmore brochure and then got off on Hwy 25. Immediately the traffic got heavy. Turns out there was an accident. The girls were in the third-row seat. All the way to Asheville they had been smiling, waving and holding up signs that said, "Please Wave," trying to get other drivers to wave back. Now they were giggling and waving to some very annoyed local Asheville drivers, who were probably trying to go to lunch or get back to work and were now stuck in traffic, made all the worse by tourists from out of state trying to get to the Biltmore. Luckily for us, we only had to travel a few blocks on this road to get past the accident and to the Biltmore entrance. We saw the cutest little McDonalds in the village. Almost every building in this village was similar and architecturally quaint.
The entrance to the Biltmore Estate had a large gate. The sign said to keep driving to the ticket/admission building. The first thing I noticed was that immediately the land began to look very estate-like. By that, I mean it was well taken care of. The streams were pretty and the meadows and grasslands were perfect We saw a bamboo forest on our right. The road was narrow but paved. The land on either side seemed to go on forever. One of the girls piped up from the back that the estate had 8,000 acres. The girls had been reading the brochure and looking at the map.
We drove for a mile or two before we saw signs directing us to a building on a small hill. This was the ticket office. We could not yet see the estate, which I am guessing was in the original plan. If you're incredibly rich and you have all this land and you decide to build an estate house, you would want privacy. You would want the house to be separate and distanced from the "working" parts of the estate. You want the house to be hidden from the roads and let visitors have no view of it until it suddenly appeared. This is how the place was. Even when we were only a hundred yards from the house, you couldn't see it. The roadways and the landscaping all work toward it. The house literally makes a grand entrance for its visitors. But more about the house later.
First, we went to the River Bend Farm. Watched a blacksmith work. Learned about the history of plows and tractors. Had some ice cream. The vanilla is made from the original Biltmore recipe and it was quite good. We went to the animal barn and petted and fed two beautiful Belgian draft horses named Bert and Ernie. There were four Angora goats who are protected by two donkey "watch dogs". There were chickens and nanny goats. The man in charge, Roger, was very nice.
(Cara) - The donkeys were named Cheyenne and Ellie. They were resting in the barnyard along with the goats. The chickens were very active and we even watched as one laid an egg. The hens sat on "chute" nests so that when they laid an egg, the egg immediately fell through a chute to the other side of a partition and could be gathered easily. The chickens were very interested in all of us and followed us as we roamed the barnyard feeding and petting the animals. While standing against the fence taking photos of the horses, I felt a tug on my shoe and looked down to see that several chickens had poked their heads out of the fence and were pecking my shoelace. Apparently, it looked like a giant worm. One chicken would grab the lace, pull it across the fence and then the other chickens would attack it, pecking it to death.
Originally uploaded by tcboos
This was quite exciting to the children and they too offered up their shoelaces. We took photos, washed our hands and then headed back to the car to move on around the estate. I was interested in visiting the winery and taking the winery tour, but no one was sapped up about doing that, so we headed toward the house.
You had to park your car in a lot and hop on a shuttle that took you to the huge 255 room house. It was quite a drive even from the parking lot, and then you entered this paved drive surrounded by a stone wall and you went through giant black iron gates to enter the home area.
The house was set back from the gates behind a beautiful expanse of lush green grass and a fountain. The shuttle let us off at the front entrance to the house, but to the right of the house were shops, eateries, and restrooms. I had forgotten the tickets so the shuttle driver took me back to my car and waited for me while Kelly and the girls took pictures back at the house. When I caught up with them we went to the rear of the house and walked out on a large "patio" that overlooked the Blue Ridge Mountains. (When I say "patio" picture a large slab of walled concrete that would hold a wedding party of 500 people)
The view as spectacular and breathtaking - no other way to describe it. George Vanderbilt, of the wealthy shipping/railroad Vanderbilt family, began building the house in 1889 when he was 27 years old. George loved architecture and history and he wanted to build a home that reflected the French chateaux. He was very involved with his architect, Richard Morris, and his landscape architect, Fredrick Law Olmsted. They had many meetings of the minds and the project took 6 years to complete. The house originally sat on 125,000 acres, but about 86,000 acres were sold to the United States Forest Service which turned them into the Pisgah National Forest. The house now sits on 8,000 acres which include formal gardens, the farm, the winery, an Inn and Deer Park, an area for horseback riding, trail rides, etc.
We left the "patio" area and hiked down to the gardens. I'm not much of a plant person, but the brochure told us to look for evergreens, ivy, rhododendrons, redwood, and holly. There was also dogwoods, magnolias, maples, and azaleas. There was an Italian Garden, a Shrub Garden, a Walled Garden, an Azalea Garden, a Spring Garden, and several Esplanades and Terraces. Also, a Bass Pond and several walking trails, but we didn't get through much save for the Italian Garden, the Walled Garden, and the Conservatory.
The flowers were amazing. It was like walking into a world of color; purples, yellows, reds, pinks, whites, etc. There were tulips, pansies, orchids, daffodils, just to name a few. We explored the Conservatory, but the heat was stifling. Expecting a cloudy and cool day we were not dressed for the hot and sunny day we ended up with. The kids sat outside while Kelly and I took photos of the different orchid species and plants inside.
We finally reached the original caretaker's cottage and turned around, realizing that continuing on through the rest of the gardens would not leave us time to explore the house. We wished we had gotten here earlier, but none of the brochures had prepared us for the enormous size of the estate and the vast amount of touring and exploring involved.
We slurped down some pretzels, a hot dog and some sodas, used the restrooms and finally entered the house. George Vanderbilt opened Biltmore House on Christmas Eve 1895 and lived there three years before marrying Edith Dresser. They had one child, a daughter, Cornelia. The house has 255 rooms, 43 bathrooms, and an indoor pool. It is the largest personal home in the United States.
We picked up our tour guidebook (there was a special one for children, sort of like a scavenger hunt, asking them to search for certain items in each room) and began on the Main Floor in the Winter Garden. It is sort of like an atrium with a glass rook. Cornelia had her wedding reception at the Biltmore in 1924 and they had a wedding breakfast in the Winter Garden.
The tour took us through 62 of the 255 rooms. It took two hours to see everything. The rooms are decorated with Vanderbilt's original furniture and belongings. The house is still owned by the family and it was opened in 1930 to the public.
Preservation and restorations have been done the rooms to keep everything authentic. Some of my favorites were the library (George was an avid reader and collector and owned over 23,000 books, many of them 1st editions by 19th century novelists), the oval-shaped bedrooms with the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the observatory which still hold the original architectural model of the house, and the basement.
The basement shows the rock walls that are the substantial structure of the house. The various kitchens (pastry, rotisserie, main) were housed in the basement along with the kitchen pantry with dumbwaiters. Also in the basement was a bowling alley, a gymnasium, and an indoor pool.
The pool was interesting. It is in its own room. Guests would change in one of the many dressing rooms off the hallway leading to the gym and pool and enter the pool through a door. Guests would climb up some stairs to the second level and enter the pool down a ladder into the deep end. The pool was 53' X 27' X 8 1/2. It ran the entire length of the room and wire seating could be lowered by ropes for those who preferred to sit and dangle their toes in the water. I picked up some ideas for when I build my dream home later in life: a housemaid closet for rinsing mops and emptying the slop jars.
The pool was interesting. It is in its own room. Guests would change in one of the many dressing rooms off the hallway leading to the gym and pool and enter the pool through a door. Guests would climb up some stairs to the second level and enter the pool down a ladder into the deep end. The pool was 53' X 27' X 8 1/2. It ran the entire length of the room and wire seating could be lowered by ropes for those who preferred to sit and dangle their toes in the water. I picked up some ideas for when I build my dream home later in life: a housemaid closet for rinsing mops and emptying the slop jars.
We were one of the last to leave the house, but lucky for us the gift shops were open for another hour so we shopped. The girls and Kelly bought goodies from the Confectionery. I purchased a Biltmore mystery for the girls at the Bookbinders, and Brianna bought a ring at the Toymakers.
We all went into the Carriage House, which contained all sorts of different items. Kelly and I found an area that offered wine from the winery and we spent considerable time sampling the different varieties. We left with 6 bottles of Biltmore wine. Probably good that we skipped the winery earlier in the day.....
The ride back was uneventful. We stopped off at Ingles for some odds and ends and returned home to find dinner waiting.
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