Explore With Me: A Visit to the Biltmore Estate, America's Largest Home

I have always wanted to see the Biltmore House. I had the opportunity recently to finally go and tour the house. The house was built by Vanderbilt because he loved the area and wanted a home in the Appalachia Mountain chain. By doing this he not only built a beautiful home in North Carolina he helped to build up a town by bringing in jobs into the area. He also ended up getting married during this time and brought her here to live. The Vanderbilts were known to be kind hearted to all those employed by them. At Christmas they bought all those who worked for them gifts. They also handed those gifts out to each employee themselves. The property was so large that after Mr. Vanderbilt passed away, Mrs. Vanderbilt gave 90,000 acres of land to create Pisgah National Forest. Yet the estate property is still quite large.

Today there are two villages on the property with some shopping, restaraunts and accommodations. You still have the house itself, the stables have been turned into shops and a restaraunt. You also can explore the gardens and visit the garden shop. You can go horseback riding, have a picnic and walk the grounds. It’s so huge.

My favorite room was the library. It has a spiral staircase that goes to the second floor where the guests could come down and borrow a book while staying at the estate. The fireplace was decorated with wisteria and walls of shelves with books. A huge table for reading and a gigantic desk so multiple people could use it at once.

The views were gorgeous and almost every room in the upper levels had one. In the gardens there were so many varieties of roses and it smelled heavenly. The gardens were my husband’s favorite area.

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