George Vanderbilt’s 250-room French Renaissance chateau is a true marvel, the largest undertaking in residential architecture. Over a six-year period, an entire community of craftsmen came together to create America’s premier home and the environmental wonderland that surrounded it.

…original art by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and John Singer Sargent..magnificent 16th century tapestries, a Library with 10,000 volumes, a Banquet Hall with a 70-foot ceiling, 35 bedrooms, an indoor pool, and a bowling alley. Almost all of the priceless objects that you see throughout the house are from George and Edith Vanderbilt’s original collection.  ~~ Biltmore Estate History

Can you imagine a world where you could wander room to room and constantly be dazzled by antique furniture, paintings, tapestries, crystal, and more?

Can you imagine a world where servants attend your every need?

Flowers burgeoning from every garden, fires crackling from 65 different fireplaces, and lavish dinners on the Vanderbilts’ burgundy-and-gold-bordered china made in England by Minton and Spode Copeland, silver flatware featuring an engraved Old English pattern from Frances Higgins, London, 1894, and delicate, feather-light crystal from Baccarat. (~~A Very Biltmore Thanksgiving).

It was a different time, a different world, far removed from the air and light we breathe today.

Everyone should visit a castle once in their lifetime.

We may not want to live there, but we can, for a brief moment, experience the opulance of days gone by.

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All photographs were taken by Claudia Anderson,© 2016.

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Read all about the Biltmore Estate at http://www.biltmore.com/