Biltmore Estate: A Visit to the Historic Home in North Carolina

ANNOUNCER:

VOICE ONE:

When his father died, George Vanderbilt received millions of dollars. He chose to spend a good deal of that money building his home in North Carolina. More than one-thousand people began the work on it in eighteen-eighty-nine. The structure was ready six years later in December eighteen-ninety-five. Biltmore is now open to the public. It is well worth a visit. So, close your eyes and imagine you are going there.

VOICE TWO:

When we leave the car, we walk through a wooded area. The air is clean. It smells of flowers. The trees are dark and very large. They block us from seeing anything. At last we come to an open area and turn to the right. The main house is several hundred meters in front of us.

Biltmore is huge. It looks like a king's palace. It measures two-hundred-thirty-eight meters from side to side. It is the color of milk, with maybe just a little chocolate added to make it light brown. As we walk closer, it seems to grow bigger and bigger. It has hundreds of windows. Strange stone creatures look down from the top. They seem to be guarding the house.

We pass through it to a second door. This one is made of rich dark wood. Both doors are several meters high. The opening is big enough for perhaps six people to walk through, side-by-side.

A book has been written about the Biltmore estate. It includes many pictures of the house, other buildings, gardens and the Vanderbilt family. The book says the house has two-hundred-fifty rooms. We cannot see and count them all. Only sixty-five are open to the public.

Then we come to a room in which dinner can be served to many guests. The table is large enough for more than sixty people. The top of this room is more than twenty-one meters high. The walls are covered with cloth pictures, flags, and the heads of wild animals.

Each room at Biltmore is more beautiful than the last. Many include paintings by famous artists, like French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir and American artist John Singer Sargent. The chairs, beds, and other furniture were made by artists who worked in wood, leather, glass, marble, and cloth.

VOICE TWO:

The Vanderbilts employed about eighty people to take care of the house. This included cooks, bakers, and house cleaners. Other workers took care of the many horses the Vanderbilts owned. Many of these workers lived in the main house, but some lived in the nearby town.

Past these rooms we find an indoor swimming pool. This area has several separate small rooms where guests could change into swimming clothes.

We finally come back to the front door of the house. Yet there is still much to see at the Biltmore estate.

VOICE TWO:

There was once a dairy farm on the Biltmore estate. It is gone now. The milk cows were sold. Some of the land was planted with grapes. And the cow barn was turned into a building for making wine.

As we continue to walk, we come to an unusual house in the forest. The road on which we are walking passes through the house. The house was used many years ago by the gate keeper. Visitors traveled from this gate house to the main house. The distance between the two is almost five kilometers. The trees surrounding Biltmore look like a natural forest.

Now you may have begun to wonder about the history of Biltmore. Who designed it? How did they plan it? How and why was it built?

VOICE TWO:

VOICE ONE:

VOICE TWO:

Gifford Pinchot left Biltmore to start the school of forestry at Yale University. Later he helped to establish the United States Forest Service.

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Today, Biltmore belongs to the grandchildren of George Vanderbilt. However, it is no longer used as a private home.

Biltmore employs more than six-hundred-fifty people who work in the house and gardens.

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Our program was written by Paul Thompson and read by Rich Kleinfeldt and Shirley Griffith. I'm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.