Biltmore House America S Largest Private Residence

Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Biltmore House boasts the title of America’s largest private residence. Built more than 100 years ago by George Washington Vanderbilt, Biltmore House stands as a lasting legacy of the Gilded Age of American history. Explore the facility, history, people, and science behind the building in Biltmore House, a Castles of the World book.

Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Biltmore House boasts the title of America's largest private residence. Built more than 100 years ago by George Washington Vanderbilt, Biltmore House stands as a lasting legacy of the Gilded Age of American history. Explore the facility, history, people, and science behind thebuilding in Biltmore House, a Castles of the World book.

A New York Times bestseller with an "engaging narrative and array of detail” (The Wall Street Journal), the “intimate and sweeping” (Raleigh News & Observer) untold, true story behind the Biltmore Estate—the largest, grandest private residence in North America, which has seen more than 120 years of history pass by its front door. The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton. Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House. Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates. Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore—and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy. This is the fascinating, “soaring and gorgeous” (Karen Abbott) story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day.

Original architectural drawings, sketches, plans, 19th century photographs, and new color photographs give the history and description of this architectural landmark.

Presents a pictorial look at the history of the Biltmore Estate and the lives of the Vanderbilt family.

Describes points of interest in each state, recommends restaurants and hotels, and includes information on shopping, transportation, entertainment, and historical sites.

ANOTHER VENTURE BOUND BOOK! Whether you are seeking a new travel adventure, enjoy immersing yourself in history with a light touch, or are just looking for a good tale, the Andersons' first volume of Travels Into Our Past: America's Living History Museums & Historical Sites will be a satisfying reading experience. When you delve into the pages of this book, you'll find yourself on an investigation of your ancestors' legacy on the different farms at Old World Wisconsin, each originally settled by a Norwegian, Dane, German, Pole, Finn, and a rich Yankee. Discover the Arabia Steamboat Museum near Kansas City and learn the unusual story of the ship which sank in the Missouri River in 1856. Because of one of the many course changes of the "Big Muddy," the Arabia was later found buried deep in a farmer's field and was excavated with its cargo, a virtual "floating Wal-Mart." In Fort Smith, Arkansas, you'll read of a fire that became known as "the night of the lingerie parade." Living history museums are an engaging and interactive way to learn about various facets of our vast country's relatively short history through demonstrations, preserved structures and re-enacted events. The Andersons share over fifty of their memorable experiences at these story-telling historical sites.

In the late 1950s, attorneys, financial managers, and tax accountants were united in advising Cecil and his brother, George, to sell off the estate's 12,000 acres in order to create a suburban subdivision. Cecil quietly ignored this advice and came up with a better idea: over the next four decades, he would turn this down-at-the-heels mansion that was a drain on the family business into the most successful, privately preserved historic site in the United States, perhaps even the world.