Welcome to The Biltmore Estate Trip Plan!

This web site is designed to help you plan your trip to America's largest home, the Biltmore House in Asheville, North Carolina.  The Biltmore house is a French Renaissance-inspired chateau built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between the years of 1888 and 1895.  It is the largest privately-owned home in the United States having 175,000 square feet.  The home is still owned by Vanderbilt's descendants and stands today as one of the most prominent remaining examples of the Gilded Age.

The history of this home 

At the height of the Gilded Age in the 1880s, George Washington Vanderbilt II, the youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, began to make regular visits with his mother to the Asheville area.  He decided to create his own summer estate in the area as the result of his great love for the scenery and climate.  His older brothers and sisters built opulent summer houses in Newport, Rhode Island and Hyde Park, New York.

The idea was to replicate the working estates of Europe, so he commissioned Richard Morris Hunt to design the house in imitation of several Loire Valley chateaux which included the Chateau de Blois.  Vanderbilt wanted the very best so he also employed Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds that included the deliberately rustic three-mile Approach Road, and Gifford Pinchot to manage the forests.  He intended for the estate to be self-supporting from the very beginning of creation.  Vanderbilt set up scientific forestry programs, poultry farms, cattle farms, hog farms and a dairy.  The estate also included its own village, which today is called Biltmore Village and even a church.  Family members and friends were invited from all over the United States and elsewhere to share the experience at Biltmore.  The opulent estate and its splendor of Olmsted's sweet-smelling gardens, rich foods at the 64-seat banquet table, and the stunning beauty of Vanderbilt's mountainous grounds was quite an experience for all its visitors.  Some famous guests through the years has been author Edith Wharton, novelist Henry James, Presidents McKinley, Wilson and Nixon, even Charles, Prince of Wales visited the Biltmore Estate.

The estate today covers approximately 8,000 acres and is spilt in half by the French Broad River.  It is owned by the Biltmore Company that is controlled by Vanderbilt's grandson, William A.V. Cecil II.  In 1963, it was designated a National Historic Landmark.  The Biltmore Estate is a fun and educational way to spend a few week days, a weekend or even just a Saturday.

Navigation of the web site:

Use the menu bar to your left and at the bottom of each page to navigate throughout the site.

Important Disclaimer:  This web site is not associated with the Biltmore Estate in Ashefield, North Carolina or any of its employees.  This is an information portal for trip/vacation planning to the Biltmore Estate.