Welcome to a Digital Museum of the Historic Biltmore Estate.
Can you imagine having to open up your family's home to tourists just so you could afford to keep living there? Well that is exactly what happened when the Vanderbilt family built their expensive mansion in a small mountain town and then had to open it to the public during the Great Depression in 1930. The house would eventually be a tourist staple for the mountains of Western North Carolina but the Vanderbilt family had made a name for themselves long before by having one of the largest, family owned,extravagant mansions of the time period.
On Christmas Eve 1895, George Washington Vanderbilt, a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt industrialist family, opened his newly built, two-hundred and fifty room home to guests for the first time. The home had taken six years to build and sprawled over the 125,000 acres he had purchased. Vanderbilt had discovered the town, Asheville, NC, while he was visiting his mother there in 1888. After seeing the beauty of the town, he decided it was to be the location for his country chateau(Carley & Rennicke, 2000). Little did the Vanderbilt family know, the Biltmore Estate would remain the largest privately owned estate in America and grow into a powerful brand that would bring tourists from all over the world to Asheville, NC over the next one hundred plus years. On this site you will be able to explore the history and impact one wealthy family had on a community and how the Great Depression influenced that.
On Christmas Eve 1895, George Washington Vanderbilt, a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt industrialist family, opened his newly built, two-hundred and fifty room home to guests for the first time. The home had taken six years to build and sprawled over the 125,000 acres he had purchased. Vanderbilt had discovered the town, Asheville, NC, while he was visiting his mother there in 1888. After seeing the beauty of the town, he decided it was to be the location for his country chateau(Carley & Rennicke, 2000). Little did the Vanderbilt family know, the Biltmore Estate would remain the largest privately owned estate in America and grow into a powerful brand that would bring tourists from all over the world to Asheville, NC over the next one hundred plus years. On this site you will be able to explore the history and impact one wealthy family had on a community and how the Great Depression influenced that.