Dusty Buildings

When a civilization ends, it does not leave behind a tombstone. Instead, it leaves stackings of stones (i.e. buildings.) We lose the remembrance of individual people, the things they said, did, and wrote, but we remember what they built because those things endure for much longer. The Ancient Greeks and Romans tell us about themselves through their Classical Architecture. We remember the Medieval period in Europe from its castles and Gothic Cathedrals. We remember the early 20th century from the Art Deco buildings it left behind. The style tells us something about their priorities, what they believed, what they knew, and what their hopes were. In a sense, the buildings a culture leaves behind are a kind of epitaph.

Let’s look through the structural epitaphs of our ancestors.

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One of the most well-known and beautiful non-government buildings in the United States started as a private residence. After you see it, you will wish the family had built more of them. Though the public spaces in the United States are dotted with empty (of feeling) glass boxes and blank concrete Brutalist atrocities, the private dwellings of the people who often own those giant towers demonstrate an enduring love of beauty that the public spaces often lack.

Perhaps an architecture sight-seeing trip in the U.S. should view Gilded Age mansions in a similar manner as Americans view castles when traveling through Europe (though I think the lack of battle stories while on the tour gives the comparative edge to the Old World.)

The Biltmore Estate was built as a private residence for the Vanderbilt family in the late 19th century. They were – at the time – the wealthiest family in the U.S. of A., and the house they constructed is arguably the finest of all Gilded Age mansions – hence our examination of it here. It was designed in Châteauesque style of French renaissance, using a few European counterparts as design influences. (More via wiki)

Architecture

Vanderbilt commissioned prominent New York architect Richard Morris Hunt, who had previously designed houses for various Vanderbilt family members, to design the house in the Châteauesque style. Hunt used French Renaissance châteaux as inspiration. Vanderbilt and Hunt had visited several in early 1889, including Château de Blois, Chenonceau and Chambord in France and Waddesdon Manor in England. These estates shared steeply pitched roofs, turrets, and sculptural ornamentation.

Form and facade

Hunt sited the four-story Indiana limestone-built home to face east, with a 375-foot (114 m) facade to fit into the mountainous topography behind. The facade is asymmetrically balanced with two projecting wings connecting to the entrance tower: an open loggia is to the left side and a windowed arcade to the right, which holds the Winter Garden that was fashionable during the Victorian era. The entrance tower contains a series of windows with decorated jambs that extend from the front door to the most decorated dormer at Biltmore on the fourth floor. The carved decorations include trefoils, flowing tracery, rosettes, gargoyles and, at prominent lookouts, grotesques. The staircase is one of the more prominent features of the east facade, with its three-story, highly decorated winding balustrade with carved statues of St. Louis and Joan of Arc by the Austrian-born architectural sculptor Karl Bitter.

The south facade is the house’s smallest and is dominated by three large dormers on the east side and a polygonal turret on the west. An arbor is attached to the house and is accessed from the library, which is located on the ground floor. On the north end of the house, Hunt placed the attached stables, carriage house and its courtyard to protect the house and gardens from the wind. The 12,000 sq ft (1,100 m²) complex housed Vanderbilt’s prized driving horses. The carriage house opposite the stables stored his twenty carriages in addition to any of his guests’ carriages.

The rear western elevation is less elaborate than the front facade, with some windows not having any decoration at all. Two matching polygonal towers in the center are connected to the polygonal south turret by an open loggia that opens the main rooms of the house to the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. The loggia is decorated overhead with terracotta tiles set in a herringbone pattern. The self-supporting ceramic tile vault and arch system was used extensively inside and outside of Biltmore, and was patented by Rafael Guastavino, a Spanish architect and engineer who personally supervised the installation. The limestone columns were carved to reflect the sunlight in aesthetically pleasing and varied ways per Vanderbilt’s wish. The rusticated base is a contrast to the smooth limestone used on the remainder of the house.

The steeply pitched roof is punctuated by sixteen chimneys and covered with slate tiles that were affixed one by one. Each tile was drilled at the corners and wired onto the attic’s steel infrastructure. Copper flashing was installed at the junctions to prevent water from penetrating. The fanciful flashing on the ridge of the roof was embossed with George Vanderbilt’s initials and motifs from his family crest, though the original gold leaf no longer survives.

Interiors

Biltmore has 4 acres (1.6 ha) of floor space and 250 rooms in the house, including 35 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as an electric Otis elevator, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms and a call bell system. Biltmore House had electricity from the time it was built, though initially it received direct current electricity due to Vanderbilt’s friendship with Thomas Edison. With electricity less safe and fire more of a danger at the time, the house had six separate sections divided by brick fire walls.

First floor

The principal rooms of the house are located on the ground floor. To the right of the marbled Entrance Hall, the octagonal sunken Winter Garden is surrounded by stone archways with a ceiling of architecturally sculptured wood and multifaceted glass. The centerpiece is a marble and bronze fountain sculpture titled Boy Stealing Geese, created by Karl Bitter. On the walls just outside the Winter Garden are copies of the Parthenon frieze. The Banquet Hall is the largest room in the house, measuring 42 ft × 72 ft (13 m × 22 m), with a 70-foot (21 m) high barrel-vaulted ceiling. The table can seat 64 guests and is surrounded by rare Flemish tapestries and a triple fireplace that spans one end of the hall. On the opposite end of the hall is an organ gallery that houses a 1916 Skinner pipe organ. Left unfinished with bare brick walls, the Music Room was not completed and opened to the public until 1976. It showcases a mantel designed by Hunt, and a print of the large engraving by Albrecht Dürer called the Triumphal Arch, commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. The mantel had been stored in the stable for over 80 years.

To the left of the entrance hall is the 90-foot (27 m) long Tapestry Gallery, which leads to the Library, featuring three 16th-century tapestries representing The Triumph of Virtue Over Vice. Elsewhere on the walls are family portraits by John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini, and James Whistler. The two-story Library contains over 10,000 volumes in eight languages, reflecting George Vanderbilt’s broad interests in classic literature as well as works on art, history, architecture, and gardening. The library also houses a concealed passageway that leads to the guest rooms.

The second-floor balcony is accessed by an ornate walnut spiral staircase. The Baroque detailing of the room is enhanced by the rich walnut paneling and the ceiling painting, The Chariot of Aurora, brought to Biltmore by Vanderbilt from the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, Italy. The painting by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini is the most important work by the artist still in existence.

Second floor

The second floor is accessed by the cantilevered Grand Staircase of 107 steps spiraling around a four-story, wrought-iron chandelier holding 72 light bulbs. The second-floor Living Hall is an extension of the grand staircase as a formal hall and portrait gallery, and was restored to its original configuration in 2013. Several large-scale masterpieces are displayed in the hall, including two John Singer Sargent portraits of Biltmore’s architect, Richard Morris Hunt, and landscaper, Frederick Law Olmsted, both commissioned for the home by Vanderbilt. Located nearby in the south tower is George Vanderbilt’s gilded bedroom with furniture designed by Hunt. His bedroom connects to his wife’s Louis XV-style, oval-shaped bedroom in the north tower through a Jacobean carved oak paneled sitting room with an intricate ceiling.

The suite of rooms includes:

• the Damask Room, with silk damask draperies and distinct damask-style wallpaper;
• the Claude Room, named after one of Vanderbilt’s favorite artists, Claude Lorrain;
• the Tyrolean Chimney Room, featuring an overmantel made from a Kachelofen, a type of tile oven that stored large amounts of heat, then released it slowly over a long period; and
• the Louis XV Room, the most grand, so named due to its architectural scheme and furnishings that were very popular in the late nineteenth century. The suite was restored and opened to the public for the first time in 100 years in 2011.

Third and fourth floors

The third floor has a number of guest rooms with names that describe the furnishing or artist that they were decorated with. The fourth floor has 21 bedrooms that were inhabited by housemaids, laundresses, and other female servants. Also included on the fourth floor is an Observatory with a circular staircase that leads to a wrought iron balcony with doorways to the rooftop where Vanderbilt could view his estate. Male servants were not housed here, however, but instead resided in rooms above the stable and complex.

Bachelors’ Wing

The Billiard Room is decorated with an ornamental plaster ceiling and rich oak paneling and was equipped with both a custom-made pool table and a carom table (table without pockets). The room was mainly frequented by men, but ladies were welcome to enter as well. Secret door panels on either side of the fireplace led to the private quarters of the Bachelors’ Wing where female guests and staff members were not allowed. The wing includes the Smoking Room, which was fashionable for country houses, and the Gun Room, which held mounted trophies and displayed George Vanderbilt’s gun collection.

Basement

The basement level featured activity rooms, including an indoor, 70,000 U.S. gallons (260,000 L; 58,000 imp gal) heated swimming pool with underwater lighting, a bowling alley, and a gymnasium with once state-of-the-art fitness equipment. The service hub of the house is also found in the largest basement in the country. It holds the main kitchen, pastry kitchen, rotisserie kitchen, walk-in refrigerators that provided an early form of mechanical refrigeration, the servants’ dining hall, laundry rooms, and additional bedrooms for staff.

Conservatory

In the conservatory, which has many flowers and trees growing in it, there is also an elevated model railway.

In popular culture

The estate has been used on numerous occasions as a filming location for movies and television shows. These have included The Swan (1956), Being There (1979), The Private Eyes (1980), Mr. Destiny (1990), The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Forrest Gump (1994), Richie Rich (1994), My Fellow Americans (1996), Patch Adams (1998), Hannibal (2001) and The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012).

The Hallmark Channel movie A Biltmore Christmas was filmed at Biltmore House in January 2023, and was first aired the following November. It was the first movie in which the setting was Biltmore House.

The Biltmore Estate has been in the news recently, though not for good reasons. In the fall of 2024, the property was squarely in the path of the tremendous damage resulting from Hurricane Helene, and the property reportedly suffered “extensive damage” though most of that was in the low lying areas, and not the House, Conservatory, winery, or hotels.

For a view of what the place looks like when it’s not recovering from a devastating storm, I direct you to the video below: