More on the Biltmore Estate

Yesterday we went to the Biltmore Estate. It was interesting, although after awhile, it's like Versailles and you get opulence overload. They do not allow photography inside, which is a bummer. Their winter garden, which was the center of the house was really beautiful. The grounds were as much of an attraction as the house. Huge, just huge.
As I previously mentioned, after the death of Mr. Vanderbilt, Edith V. sold 85,000 acres to the Park Service which become Pisgah National Forest. This was to honor his desire that the land not be significantly changed. Isn't that amazing to have that much land?
We were talking to the man who does blacksmith demonstrations and he told us some interesting factoids. The house has 43 bathrooms, and they made their own electricity. At that time, Asheville did not have power. When Vanderbilt bought the property, the valley had been logged and farmed. He had to negotiate with each farmer to buy them out. After selling, they could either stay on the land and share crop or they could come work for him on the estate. The soil was pretty much done by the time he got there, bad farming practices were killing the dirt. They planted over a million saplings the first year. Frederick Law Olmstead sited the house and regraded much of the land close to the house to make it pretty. He did the formal gardens and the grounds around the house. The drive in to the house is 3 miles, and all of it was planted, none of it occurred that way. They planted approximately 3 million more plants in the landscaping effort. Anyway, Mr. V. was the youngest child, got the smallest inheritance and unlike many of his sibs was not a complete idiot. Although he built more house than any human being would ever need, he did have a plan to pay for it, the Biltmore estate was designed to be self sustaining. They raised cattle, food, did logging, made money. It could have kept going for years except for one thing. He died. Complications of an appendectomy killed him at age 52. Edith was not equipped to run the estate. When their only child Cornelia married in to the Cecil family, her husband took over the running of it all. Later, when they divorced, they swapped estates as part of the settlement. He had one in England, which is where she wanted to live, she hated Asheville, and he wanted the Biltmore. Their two sons later inherited. Today it's incorporated as a for profit concern. Ticket sales are only 11% of the yearly gross. They have a winery, furniture lines, restaurants, and other things that make money. Preservation and restoration are not cheap. The Biltmore is the second largest employer in western NC, with 1,800 people on the payroll. Talking to the blacksmith was the best part of the day.
If you have not yet seen them, pictures are in the next post down. I apologize for forgetting to turn off the "autoplay" feature. It just annoys the living snot out of me, but at this point I can not go in and fix it.
Today we went out to look at a combination airport/golf community which was pretty amazing. Pictures to follow. Tomorrow we are sleeping late and not doing much of anything, Thursday it's off to Charleston SC. Hopefully there will not be anymore hurricanes while we are sitting on the coast. We are having fun here, gas and diesel are more readily available, which has certainly improved my outlook on life.