Yesterday Michael, Paula, and I loaded into the car and headed for Ashville, NC to visit the Biltmore. The Biltmore, which was completed in 1895, is a large and extravagant homestead built by George Vanderbilt. I have been wanting to go for several years, but it has never worked out when we were visiting Mike and Paula.
I'm so glad that we were able to go on this trip. It was really neat to see it all decorated for Christmas! You are not allowed to take pictures inside the "house" (a 175,000 square foot mansion), but I did buy a coffee table book with lots of great pictures. Next time you're over, be sure to check it out if you're interested.
The gardens were all dead and not much to look at (not to mention, it was freezing, and we didn't want to be outside any longer than necessary). However, the inside of the house made up for that. We arrived around 3:00 and went through the self-paced day tour and got a few outdoor photos. A lot of the house is not included on the tour, but we got to see the entrance hall, the "winter garden," billiard room, dining hall (with 70' ceilings and three fireplaces, and a huge organ!), library with approximately 10,000 books and a HUGE fireplace (awesome room!) and a few other rooms on the ground floor. Then we went up the amazing grand staircase to tour the original homeowners' bedrooms, which were very extravagant. We also got to see several of the guest rooms that were recently renovated and opened for the tour last year...how I would love to have been a guest there! Some of the most unexpected things on the tour were in the basement - the pool, bowling lanes, and gym. Lastly, we got to see the servants' quarters, kitchens, and washing and drying rooms. The whole thing seemed surreal.
We did get some pictures before our tour.
Michael and I on the side porch
Side view of the house (notice how small the people are in comparison)
View out back
Fountain Courtyard
Michael, Paula, and Me
Front of House
Michael and Paula on the front lawn
Our tour took approximately two hours with Michael and I reading and taking in every detail - Paula, thank you for your patience! (She has been several times and was patient as we soaked it all in.) After our tour, we headed to the winery where we ate at the bistro and browsed through the gift shop. The food was amazing, and we came away from the gift shop with several dips and goodies. (We went through the gift shop while we waited for a table, so we were hungry. Since we were so hungry, the samples sold us on several items. I hope they're as good as we remember when we get around to making them!)
Paula had upgraded our tickets to include the evening candlelight tour, which is only available around the holidays. Unfortunately, this tour has tickets for specific times, and we weren't able to get in until 10:00 pm. After dinner, we headed back over to the house and went through some gift shops there. It was cold, so we had coffee and cider (with cookies!) as we browsed. I found my coffee table book, and we also got a Biltmore Christmas ball for our tree.
In the end, we only had about 20 or 30 minutes to wait for our scheduled time. In the mean time, we got to see the Christmas lights on the front lawn.
The wait was worth it! They had fires going in most of the fireplaces and a lot of candles lit. Also, the Christmas trees were much more majestic after dark. It was all so pretty!
Since we had read everything on the first pass through the house, the second time through did go much faster. However, it was still almost 1:30 am by the time we got back to Mike and Paula's house. Paula, thank you for planning this and staying up so late to take us and enjoy it with us!
4 comments:
Michael and Melissa, It was indeed a very fun day for me! I actually ended up enjoying having the later tour time; it just seemed so much like a fun Christmas thing to do and getting to have dinner, coffee and shop in between the tours was so much fun! It brought me a lot of pleasure seeing how much you both enjoyed seeing it and learning about the history of the family and the house. I'm just happy we got our tour in before Asheville received their 15 inches of snow! Thanks for sharing it with me!
I'm glad that you had fun too! I've enjoyed my coffee table book, and I'm looking forward to a lazy afternoon (maybe in April!) when I can sit and read through it all. The history is fascinating!
It would have been really neat to see all the snow on the grounds, but I'm glad we didn't have to decide whether or not to brave driving in that!
What a fun thing to do and the candlelight part sounds particularly neat! I like that you got an ornament to commemorate it. I really like to get ornaments from trips/special places. It makes decorating the tree so much fun! Kelly
It was very neat Kelly. I think you would really like it if you are ever up that way and have the chance to go. I agree on the ornaments. I love collecting them from difference places that we go. We don't have too many "memory" ornaments yet, but I always loved decorating Mom's tree growing up and talking about all the different memories the ornaments brought back.
Post a Comment