Just before Memorial Day, we had the privilege of visiting the Biltmore estate in Ashville, North Carolina. Since I attended university in South Carolina way back in the 1970s, I’ve known about the place for almost 50 years, but had never visited.
I knew the place would be impressive, having seen dozens of pictures of the chateau, the gardens, the interior rooms. But I had no idea the scope of the impressiveness!
Just the drive from the entrance to the estate parking lot is itself beautiful, as it winds for a few miles through woods and meadows. Once parked, we walked for five minutes or so before getting our first view of the chateau—and it was breathtaking! We ascended the switchback steps to the esplanade for a better view and lingered awhile, trying to take it all in.
Upon entering the chateau, a hostess offers listening devices for a tour of the mansion. Within the 250-room structure, two dozen listening stations allow for an explanation of what’s in sight—sometimes providing a historical background, sometimes pointing out small details. I was grateful for the narration since it made the experience far richer.
The first stop on the tour focused on an atrium the size of our house! It served simply as a sitting area for conversation, reading, and relaxation.
For the next two hours, we meandered through the main dining room with seating for 24 at the primary table…
…a smaller breakfast room (“smaller” being quite relative—it was larger than our living room, dining room, and kitchen combined!)…
…the billiard room…
…music room…
…an expansive veranda with a view of the Smoky Mountains in the distance…
…the library of thousands of volumes…
…the tapestry room (another sitting/conversation/reading/relaxation area)…
…George Vanderbilt’s bedroom…
…another sitting area between the husband’s bedroom and his wife, Edith’s…
…her bedroom…
…the opulent and comfortable guest quarters (with yet another large open sitting room)…
…to the basement that housed a bowling alley, swimming pool, kitchens, pantries, and servants’ quarters.
After a brief ice cream break, we headed to the gardens. The estate covers more than 8,000 acres, and 22 miles of trails allow for strolling, hiking, and even biking. We simply strolled through the Italian Garden and then walked a couple of miles, taking in the impressive variety of trees, shrubs, and plants.
The ultimate garden destination was the Rose Garden, highlighting dozens of varieties of roses at various stages of bloom.
Adjacent to the Rose Garden stands the large Conservatory, home to a countless array of plants—both flowering and not. The vast majority of which I had never seen before. With my penchant for killing plants, I marveled at the health, vitality, and endless variety!
Though we didn’t check it out, five miles from the chateau, still on the estate itself, Vanderbilt established a winery to process the grapes from the estate vineyard.
In all, we spent about seven hours at the Biltmore Estate. One could easily visit for a couple of days and still not take in everything.
Without question, George Vanderbilt developed an impressive place!
As I made my way through the awesome grounds, though, I couldn’t help but think of Solomon—specifically what he wrote in Ecclesiastes 2-3.
George Vanderbilt was heir to a massive fortune, left behind by his grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt. A ruthless man, Cornelius earned his fortune primarily in the shipping industry at the dawn of the railroad era, essentially establishing a monopoly and making him the wealthiest man in the Gilded Age. When he died in 1877, his net worth was more than $185 billion (in today’s dollars).
Of course, he left it all to his son William, who doubled the fortune. And then he died in 1885.
Of course, William left the immense fortune to his kids, including George. And they started squandering the wealth.
George visited the Asheville, North Carolina area in 1888, fell in love with the place, and determined to buy up land and build the massive estate.
“Whatever my eyes desired, I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure….” So wrote Solomon (Eccl. 2:10), and so did George.
Peruse Ecclesiastes 2:3-10
Like Solomon:
- He made his works great.
- He built himself houses, and planted vineyards.
- He made himself gardens and orchards and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.
- He made himself water pools.…
- He acquired male and female servants, and had servants born in his house.
- He gathered for himself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings….
- He acquired male and female singers…and musical instruments of all kinds.
So he became great and excelled more than all who were before him in North Carolina!
Seven years after his initial visit, Biltmore House officially welcomed family and friends on Christmas Eve, 1895—though it wasn’t quite finished. In 1898, two and a half years later, with the house now fully complete, George married Edith.
They enjoyed the opulence of Biltmore together for a short 16 years. At age 52, George died of complications from an emergency appendectomy.
And he left everything behind.
Hard telling what George came to think of all he had accomplished with his inheritance. But one thing is certain, he could have echoed Solomon,
“I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is vanity.”
Ecclesiastes 2:18b-19
While the Biltmore Estate is still owned by the Vanderbilt family, it’s no one’s residence (as it was for George and Edith) hosting grand galas and esteemed guests from around the world. The heirs maintain the estate for paying guests (like me) to come and be wowed by the grandeur of days gone by. And the estate itself has shrunk considerably. George originally purchased 125,000 acres of land; only 8,000 remain as estate-owned.
It seems Solomon was lamenting a sad, this-world reality. Through his passionate effort, a man can build a Biltmore Estate—fulfilling what his eyes desire, giving his heart to any pleasure, rejoicing for a time in the fruit of his labor—but in the end, ultimately, it is all “vanity and grasping for the wind. There is no profit under the sun.”
Either the estate itself will pass away, or he will (leaving it to whom?), or both. And to what end?
There has to be more to life than that!
Indeed, there is. Keep reading the rest of Ecclesiastes for the answers!
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