After a quick lunch, David and I got to visit the Biltmore "house." And I use the term loosely. The house has 250 rooms and is 175,000 square feet!
We weren't allowed to take photographs inside, so we took plenty outside. The weather was actually only mildly chilly, considering we were there in the middle of February.
I'm sure the wedding party and guests were happy that the rain held off until after the ceremony.
There was a tremendous amount of detail in the stonework on the outside of the mansion. David wanted to be sure that we capture it all.
I think this is the outside view of the grand staircase inside.
We went around to the side of the house where they were setting up for the wedding reception and found these huge trees growing around the porch structure!
The view from the "porch."
Another view from the "porch."
When it was finally time to go in, it was truly incredible inside. I was going to leave out the inside portion of our trip to your imagination, since I wasn't able to snap any photographs.
But I couldn't resist googling a few photos and uploading them here.
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| Breakfast Room |
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| Billiards Room |
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| Grand Staircase |
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| George Vanderbilt's Bedroom |
George and Edith Vanderbilt had separate bedrooms, which they used for their numerous outfit changes during the day (assisted by their maids/valets).
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| Edith Vanderbilt's Bedroom |
Their room was separated by this oak sitting room, where they would join each other for breakfast each morning.
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| Oak Sitting Room |
After seeing the opulent rooms of the lord and lady of the manor, we got a special treat and saw many "behind the scenes" rooms - like these servant's quarters.
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| Servant's Quarters |
Normally, there is a completely separate tour that is not included as part of the $45 ticket (yes, FORTY-FIVE DOLLARS).
So we were really glad to see it. And while these accomodations seemed quite sparse, apparently, they were quite generous for the servants at the time.
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| Servant's Quarters |
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| Dining Hall |
This library was completely designed around this painting. This painting was originally painted in the 1700's. The house wasn't built until 1895. Yes, George Vanderbilt bought the painting for the ceiling of his house and had it brought there in pieces. Crazy ridiculous!!
The rest of the library was just as opulent. There's a whole balcony of books up there, with a spiral staircase to reach them.
We got to see more of the life of the servants, this being the kitchen.
This was where they dried the laundry. These huge racks would slide in between heating elements to speed in the washing of the linens.
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| Laundry Drying Racks |
George Vanderbilt was apparently all about fitness. He didn't want his guests to go without. There was a full exercise room in the lower level of the house, including a rowing machine, dumbbells, , excercise ball, and even showers.
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| Exercise Room |
Oh, and an indoor bowling alley. Of course, this was before the automatic pin resetters, so the servants had to reset the pins each time, and roll the ball back. And of course, you have to feel sorry for the cook, whose bedroom was on the other side of the wall from the bowling alley. So if the Vanderbilts and their friends chose to play a game late at night, he was bombarded with bowling balls hitting his bedroom wall all night. But he got his revenge in the end, as breakfast was never very good on those mornings.
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| Bowling Alley |
I think this room, was probably one of the most shocking. An indoor swimming pool. Built from 1890-1895. No kidding! And at a time when many homes didn't even have electricity, this pool had lights under water! Crazy!
When we concluded our tour, we checked out a few shops on the grounds. We weren't technically permitted to leave yet, as the wedding party was still taking photos in front of the house, and didn't want the shuttles to be in the way (understandably).
I snapped a quick pic of the wedding before we left.
And we got this one parting photo as we left.
It was a great, full day. We learned a lot and really enjoyed it.
