Mad Dash for Asheville – A Christmas Road Trip Series, Day Six

Monday morning (Boxing Day) would be the final chance to see the Biltmore house and estate. Since we had bought tickets for special tours of the house at 10am, we got up and moving early, packing the rest of our stuff and preparing to load it back into the van. We got down to the breakfast room around 8am to chow down on the delicious buffet one last time, making sure to have our fill of glorious cheese blintzes and crispy-on-the-outside-fluffy-on-the-inside waffles.

After breakfast we loaded everything in the van and drove (for the first time in days) over to the house, so that we could get on the road after our tours with the least amount of hassle. Mom and Dad were headed to the behind-the-scenes “Butler” tour to see the inner workings of the house and take a closer look at the life of servants and staff. Mike, Emily and I were bound for the “Architect” tour, where we would inspect the structure and labor for the house and see parts that were closed off to the other tours – including, most importantly, the roof!

I had the presence of mind to carry my camera with me on this particular day, mainly because we’d be allowed to take photos outside the house while on the Architect tour. As a result, for the rest of this post I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

The tour started on the ground level outside the house, where our guide (John) told us more about the stone carvings and the skilled craftsmen that made them. Stone carvers were the highest-class workers on the site – the only ones that rode to work inside their own rail cars, rather than on top of a flatbed. They also had a sense of humor, and often took the opportunity to poke fun at their foremen and the architect, Richard Morris Hunt, as well. Here are a few detail examples of the carvings:

We moved on through the house and up the grand, cantilevered staircase (my brother wasn’t impressed with the way they talked it up – “lots of places have cantilevered staircases”) past the four-story wrought-iron chandelier that, John told us, was suspended by a single bolt in the ceiling. Must have been one serious bolt – the chandelier weighs 1700 pounds.

At the top of the stairs, we got to see one of the original scale models of the house made during its planning stages as well as some of Hunt’s copies of the plans. The meticulous attention to detail on both was simply stunning. We were then led through the observatory room, which had a spiral staircase up to a set of large double-doors that opened up to look over the esplanade in front of the house.

Around the terrace was a gargoyle that one of the workers accidentally struck while working on the roof, breaking off its tail. The stone carvers couldn’t really tack on a new tail at that point, so instead they carved some buttocks on it – an example of the sense of humor I mentioned earlier. Apparently, you have to rub the gargoyle’s butt if you go on the roof, otherwise you’ll get lost up there; we were happy to keep tradition alive and take a picture to prove it.

True to form, the ironwork on the roof was very impressive. There is very little wood in the roof, as George Vanderbilt wanted the house to be as fireproof as possible. It’s made almost entirely from iron and carefully-formed slate shingles.

Coming around the back of the house, we were treated to the view of George’s backyard – 125,000 acres at the time he lived there, with the gorgeous Blue Ridge mountains in the distance.

On the same back terrace, John pointed out the only gargoyle on the house that actually functioned as a water spout, “like the ones described in the Victor Hugo novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” He’s the guy stuffed in the corner there:

The view at the back terrace concluded the tour, so we met up with Mom and Dad at the front of the house, where I noticed the festively-decorated lions at the entrance:

Following some final gift-shopping at the stables next door, (I picked up a very handsome pictorial guide to the house, to make up for all those photos I didn’t get to take) we headed back down to Antler Hill Village for one last cup of Biltmore Creamery Ice Cream and a few more pictures.

Our Christmas Trip Architects:

And finally, your blogger:

So at last, we bid adieu to the beautiful Biltmore Estate. The house, the gardens, and the grounds are all true masterworks of engineering and vision, combining technology and aesthetics in ways that were pioneering for their time. This place is an American landmark, and getting the opportunity to see it with my family was a true blessing. As family trips go (and we’ve had some good ones), this has to be one of the best.

This is basically the conclusion of the Christmas trip series; in the next couple of days I may add an epilogue post that has some details about the trip home, or in my case, to Texarkana and then College Station. I hope you enjoyed reading about our trip – please comment below and let me know!

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