Every year, I plan a budget friendly road trip that appeals to the whole family. It’s not easy when you’re traveling with two teens. But we got lucky. The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC, had something for everyone. I wanted gardens. My husband wanted trains. And the girls just wanted to be somewhere other than Illinois. By the end of the Biltmore experience, we all were blown away.
You can’t grasp the enormity of the place until you pass the entry gate. It was then that I realized we had entered a different world. One where the roads are lined with an impenetrable bamboo thicket and the forest leading up to the estate is pristine and full of enormous trees. Even the small stone bridges were worth admiring. So much care and thought had been put into this very grand, but incredibly natural landscape. Frederick Law Olmsted, considered the father of American landscape architecture, was the mastermind of the Biltmore landscape.
The library terrace, covered in enormous wisteria trunks, offered views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and overlooked the outdoor amphitheater.
Massive sculptures, including this one in the outdoor amphitheater on the south terrace, were purchased in France and Italy by George Vanderbilt in the late 1880s. They are part of the estate’s open-air museum.
Boy Stealing Geese, a fountain sculpture by Karl Bitter, was centered beneath the glass roof of the Winter Garden, one of the first rooms you enter on the tour.
The Vanderbilt Home
Before we entered the Biltmore, we spent a few extra bucks for the audio guide which provided in-depth information on the artwork and history. Without it, we would still have marveled at the visual details, but hearing all the nuances of the unique rooms and people made it so much more interesting. While there was much to marvel at in this 250 room home, I was most struck by the beautiful light of the Winter Garden and the library containing half of Vanderbilt’s 22,000 volume collection.
The Winter Garden must have been something to see when it was lush with tropical plants. The glass roof flooded the room with beautiful light. Can you imagine how this must have looked when the Vanderbilt’s lived here? I paused briefly to consider that before continuing on our tour.
After dinner, guests of the Vanderbilts would sometimes retire to the library where they were encouraged to get comfortable with a book. How different things are today. The Chariot of Aurora, painted by Italian artist Giovanni Pellegrini in the late 1720s, originally adorned the ceiling of the Pisani Palace in Venice. It now overlooks the library.
The Walled Garden
The Biltmore Gardens
As any plant nerd will attest, a garden tour is a highlight of any trip. The Biltmore certainly didn’t disappoint. I loved the use of texture. The juxtaposition of broad leaved plants and airy grasses. Silvers and reds were prominent in the center of the Walled Garden planted out in geometric beds of sharp angles and long lines.
Two grape-covered arbors, spanning approximately 236 feet, offer structure through the center of the Walled Garden.
Bold-leaved tropicals like canna and banana punctuate the four-acre formal Walled Garden. I use the same plants to add drama to my modest beds.
Heirloom roses are the center of the rose garden. Additionally, up to 40 new varieties are trialed for a two year period and rated for fragrance, bloom, disease resistance and landscape use.
The Biltmore Conservatory, now home to a vast collection of exotics, originally housed the plants used to adorn the Biltmore home.
The Biltmore Gardens Railway
A G-scale railway runs throughout the exotic plantings and miniature estate replicas housed in the conservatory. It’s pretty cool and the attention to detail on the buildings was exceptional. We chose the perfect year to visit the Biltmore as the railway is on display until Sept. 29, 2019.
The scale model of the Biltmore house and other replicas were constructed from 25 items harvested from the estate grounds. Among them hickory nuts, acorn caps, various tree barks, magnolia leaves and horse chestnut.
Conservatory replica
A rooftop on one of the replicas made from bits and pieces found in nature. Seven artists collaborated on the miniatures compared to 1,000 workers who built the Biltmore house.
