Honeymoon Road Trip – Part 9: Beautiful Biltmore Estate in North Carolina

Day 14

The night before, we arrived at Garrett’s aunt and uncle’s home in upstate South Carolina. When we started talking to his aunt about things to do in the area, one of the first places she mentioned was Biltmore Estate. It was only about a 45 minutes drive over state lines to Asheville, North Carolina and she was so kind to take us on a grande tour of the estate, having been there many times before. The 250-room estate sits on 8,000 acres and is the largest private home built in America.

Inspired by the working estate chateaux of Europe, George Vanderbilt built his summer home over six years with 1000 men working six days a week to complete it. Biltmore Estate was christening on Christmas Eve 1895. The finished home contains over four acres of floor space, including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, a library with 10,000 volumes, a banquet hall with 70-feet ceiling, an indoor pool, gym and bowling alley.

Almost all of the priceless objects throughout the house are from George and Edith Vanderbilt’s original collection, including 16th century tapestries that hang from the walls.

During WWII, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. sent 62 paintings and 17 sculptures by train to store for safe keeping in the music room of the estate from 1942-1944, including  Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and works by Rembrandt, Raphael, and Anthony van Dyck.

The estate has also been used as a filming location for many films including Hannibal, Mr. Destiny and Ritchie Rich with Macaulay Culkin – you can see the estate in the trailer.

Throughout the stone carvings on the exterior there are gargoyles and grotesques carved and intertwined into the designs. Little faces, designs and creatures seem to be everywhere you look.

One of the highlights of our tour was seeing the amazing views, like this one from the South Terrace. You can see why Vanderbilt chose to build here.

Once we went inside the building, I couldn’t take any pictures, which is always hard for a shutterbug like me, but I was able to grab some pictures off the Biltmore Estate website to share.

When you look at the enormous banquet hall, you can see why it was often called “Biltmore Castle”. With 70 feet high ceilings and a great table that seats 64 guests, it’s larger than life.

The Winter Garden is just one of the places inside that was teeming with beautiful plants.

Biltmore House was one of the first private homes in North Carolina to be fully electrified, having been wired for electricity when it was constructed. Plans for the electrical system included 288 lighting fixtures and 180 outlets. Many of the fixtures had to be retrofitted from gas models or custom made. Through the grand staircase, there is a 1700 lb custom made electric light fixture that hangs down through all the floors.

It’s secured with a single bolt that runs through the steel girders of the dome roof.

The two storey library was one of my favourite rooms. It holds more than 10,000 volumes.

The furnishings and fixtures of the house are mostly items that the Vanderbilts picked up on their extensive buying-trips overseas while construction of the house was in progress. They included furniture, carpets, prints, linens and tapestries that date between the 1400s to the late 1800s from countries all over the world.

 There was even a gym and a bowling alley…

 …as well as an indoor pool with change rooms.

Deep in the basement, is another little secret – the Halloween Room. Originally called that because it was believed to have been painted by guests at a Halloween party in the 1920’s due to the black cats, bats and witches depicted on the walls. Some research shows that it may have been intentionally painted like this for a gypsy-themed New Years Eve party in 1925.

We took a break for lunch at the Stable Café, located in the buildings original 19th century stable.

We also made a quick stop into the Christmas store on the grounds to pick up an ornament for our tree as a little reminder of our honeymoon.

Then it was back out onto the grounds to see just a little bit of the 40,000 acres of land surrounding the estate.

The Italian garden has classical statues, with three formal water gardens, full of lilypads and koi.

 Continuing down the pathway, you reach the walled garden.

There are over 1400 roses grown in the historic Rose Garden that was established in the 19th century.

A the end of the garden is this beautiful Conservatory.

The glass-roofed building is home to many exotic ferns, palms and orchids and provides the plants and flowers that are use to decorate the house, as it did in the Vanderbilts’ time. While we were back at the house, we stopped in to take a peek at the florist room downstairs. My mom would have loved it.

I couldn’t get over all the different varieties of orchids. I didn’t even realize how many variations there was or all the vibrant colours they come in.

 These ones smelled like chocolate.

 Don’t these look like aliens or something? So creepy/cool.

Across from Biltmore House there is a hill known as the Vista, with these sloped steps leading up to it.

The climb up the stairs was so worth it to see this amazing view. What an incredible example of 19th century architecture and ingenuity! I’m so glad we had the chance to tour around and see so much of it, but I couldn’t easily come back again to explore more of the grounds. There is just only so much you can see in one day.

On our way back down the winding road that leads to the estate, we stopped by a pond and stumbled upon a large family of Canadian Geese enjoying the park too. Nice to see some familiar faces.

 The view of the back of back of the estate from the pond. Just lovely.

We finished off the afternoon with a quick drive over the winery for a tasting, grabbed a bottle to take home and then made our way back to spend our evening with some of our Southern family.

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Just in case you’ve missed the previous Honeymoon Road Trip posts:

• Part 1: Heading out on the Open Road {Nashville & Arriving in Laurel}
• Part 2: Beautiful Laurel, Mississippi
• Part 3: Arriving in New Orleans & Visiting Plantations along the Mississippi River
• Part 4: New Orleans {The Garden District and the French Quarter}
• Part 5: Leaving New Orleans and driving through Alabama to Destin, Florida
• Part 6: St. Augustine, Florida
• Part 7: Savannah, Georgia
• Part 8: Tybee Island, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina