I'm going to put most of the Biltmore Gardens photos on Facebook so more of the Master Gardeners can see them there. You can't take photos inside the house so most of them are of the gardens and grounds. Biltmore is still run by the Vanderbilt family that built it. Some facts I found fascinating: when they built it they actually constructed a railroad to the sight of the house to bring in materials, it's still a large working farm today, it's a really big business today!
Gilded Age architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the Biltmore Estate for George Washington Vanderbilt at the end of 19th century. Constructed in the style of a French Renaissance chateau, the Biltmore has 255 rooms. At 175,000 square feet (16,300 square meters), the Biltmore is the largest privately owned home in the United States. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted (the same guy that designed Central Park in NYC) designed the gardens and grounds surrounding the mansion. Vanderbilt's descendants still own Biltmore Estate.
(Sorry about the continuing italics but I can't turn them off after the quote above.) One of the docents there told us several things about the company. They have 1800 employees and there are 400-500 volunteers that work on the estate. The business is much bigger than just the estate. On the grounds there is a retail area called Antler's Hill Village, there is a hotel. There are businesses off of the property like one that builds and sells reproduction furniture. The estate was originally 225,000 acres but when hard times set in after one of the owners died unexpectedly most of it was sold off and that provided the funds that started the business that is there today. There are about 1,000,000 visitors a year and at $60 a head that's a good bit of money but that's a relatively small part of the total income. Click on this and then on "Bring Biltmore Home" to see an idea of the related businesses.
Here's the link to their website!
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