Approached from the Biltmore Lodge Gate of Biltmore Estate,along a three-mile drive of paved roads which wind their waythrough plantations of flowering shrubs and forests of pine, hemlockand hardwood, Biltmore House, for nearly half a centuryunique among the great country houses of America, comes into viewwith almost startling suddenness. A sharp turn through the wroughtiron gates of the north entrance gives one the first view of the magnificentmansion completed by George W. Vanderbilt in 1895.

Following in many details the lines of French Renaissance chateaux,particularly those of Blois and Chambord, Biltmore House was designedby Richard M. Hunt, of New York. The landscape setting of themansion and the estate was planned by Frederick Law Olmsted, designerof Central Park, New York, and executed under the direction of C. D.Beadle, for more than sixty years Superintendent of the Estate. Bymany, the great estate surrounding the mansion is believed to be thefinest example of landscape design in America.

The visitor can profitably study the exterior of the mansion beforepassing through the main portal. The structure has a frontage of 780feet. The breadth of the house, from the main door to the west front, is150 feet. The facade rises in three distinct levels, graduated from portalsto finials. The characteristic French peaked roof, with its dormerwindows and lofty chimneys, relieves any tendency toward severity.The walls are of hand-tooled Indiana limestone; the roof is of slate.

Biltmore House, begun in 1890, was completed and opened in 1895after five years of intensive construction. Special railroad tracks werelaid from what is now Biltmore station to the site—three miles away—forthe conveyance of the great mass of construction material required.Hundreds of skilled artisans from various parts of this country andEurope worked unremittingly, while other hundreds of laborersfrom the mountain sections of North Carolina were given steadyemployment during the period of construction.

The visitor gains the first impression of the mansion’s magnitudewhen passing through the main entrance door, flanked bysixteenth century lions of Italian marble, into the great hall whichgives access to the main rooms. The self-supporting arches surroundingthe Palm Court are ceiled with tiles especially made bythe celebrated artist and architect, Rafael Guastavino, while thearches and dome of the broad circular stairway which spirals to thetopmost floor from the left side of the hall are of Indiana limestone.Facing the entrance door from the rear of the hall is a ceremonialfurnishing of Cardinal Richelieu, showing the Cardinal’scoat-of-arms, motto and hat; it is one of a pair, the

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