It was built more than one-hundredyears ago near the mountains of North Carolina. It is still thelargest private home in the United States.
I’m Shirley Griffith.
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And I’m Rich Kleinfeldt. The story of “Biltmore” is our reporttoday on the VOA Special English program This Is America.
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An estate is a property, usually large, owned by one person or afamily. The man who owned the Biltmore estate in North Carolina wasGeorge Vanderbilt. He was born in eighteen-sixty-two and died innineteen-fourteen. His father and grandfather were two of therichest and most powerful businessmen in America. They made theirmoney in shipping and railroads.
When his father died, GeorgeVanderbilt received millions of dollars. He chose to spend a gooddeal of that money building his home in North Carolina. More thanone-thousand people began the work on it in eighteen-eighty-nine.The structure was ready six years later in Decembereighteen-ninety-five. Biltmore is now open to the public. It is wellworth a visit. So, close your eyes and imagine you are going there.
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Our car has just turned off one ofthe main roads in the city of Asheville, North Carolina. We haveentered a private road that leads to the main house on the Biltmoreestate. The sides of the road are lined with trees.
When we leave the car, we walk through a wooded area. The air isclean. It smells of flowers. The trees are dark and very large. Theyblock us from seeing anything. At last we come to an open area andturn to the right. The main house is several hundred meters in frontof us.
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Biltmore is huge. It looks like aking’s palace. It measures two-hundred-thirty-eight meters from sideto side. It is the color of milk, with maybe just a little chocolateadded to make it light brown. As we walk closer, it seems to growbigger and bigger. It has hundreds of windows. Strange, stonecreatures look down from the top. They seem to be guarding thehouse.
Two big stone lions guard the front door. Biltmore really has twofront doors. The first is made of glass and black iron. We passthrough it to a second door. This one is made of rich dark wood.Both doors are several meters high. The opening is big enough forperhaps six people to walk through, side-by-side.
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A book has been written about the Biltmore estate. It includesmany pictures of the house, other buildings, gardens, and theVanderbilt family. The book says the house has two-hundred-fiftyrooms. We cannot see and count them all. Only sixty-five are open tothe public.
One room that can be seen looks like a garden. It is alive withflowers. In the center is a statue with water running from it. Whenwe look up, we see the sky through hundreds of windows. Eight biglights hang from the top.
Then we come to a room in which dinner can be served to manyguests. The table is large enough for more than sixty people. Thetop of this room is more than twenty-one meters high. The walls arecovered with cloth pictures, flags, and the heads of wild animals.
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Each room at Biltmore is more beautiful than the last. Manyinclude paintings by famous artists, like French artistPierre-Auguste Renoir and American artist John Singer Sargent. Thechairs, beds, and other furniture were made by artists who worked inwood, leather, glass, marble, and cloth.
One room was designed for reading. It contains more thantwenty-three-thousand books in eight languages. Stairs on the sideof the room permit visitors to reach books that are kept near thetop. The paintings in this reading room are beautiful, too.
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Later, we visit rooms below ground level. The people who workedfor the Vanderbilt family lived in this lower part. The Vanderbiltsemployed about eighty people to take care of the house. Thisincluded cooks, bakers, and house cleaners. Other workers took careof the many horses the Vanderbilts owned. Many of these workerslived in the main house, but some lived in the nearby town.
One of the biggest rooms below ground level is the kitchen. Andthere are separate rooms for keeping food fresh and cold, and forwashing the Vanderbilt’s clothes.
Past these rooms we find an indoor swimming pool. This area hasseveral separate small rooms where guests could change into swimmingclothes.
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We finally come back to the front door of the house. Yet there isstill much to see at the Biltmore estate.
To the left of the front door, about fifty meters away, is wherethe Vanderbilt family kept its horses. It is no longer used forhorses, however. It now has several small stores that sell gifts tovisitors. Visitors can also enjoy a meal or buy cold drinks and icecream.
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In addition to seeing the main house at Biltmore, you can walkthrough the gardens. Hundreds of different flowers grow there. A bigstone and glass building holds young plants before they are placedin the ground outside. Past the gardens is the dark, green forest.Trees seem to grow everywhere. The place seems wild. At the sametime, there is a feeling of calm order.
There was once a dairy farm on the Biltmore estate. It is gonenow. The milk cows were sold. Some of the land was planted withgrapes. And the cow barn was turned into a building for making wine.
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As we continue to walk, we come to an unusual house in theforest. The road on which we are walking passes through the house.The house was used many years ago by the gate keeper. Visitorstraveled from this gate house to the main house. The distancebetween the two is almost five kilometers. The trees surroundingBiltmore look like a natural forest. Yet all of the area wasplanned, built, and planted by the men who designed the estate. Noneof it is natural.
Now you may have begun to wonder about the history of Biltmore.Who designed it. How did they plan it. How and why was it built.
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The Biltmore estate was the idea of George Vanderbilt. Thebuildings were designed by Richard Morris Hunt. Mr. Hunt was one ofthe most famous building designers of his day. He designed andhelped build several other big homes in the United States. Severalof them were for other members of the Vanderbilt family. Mr. Huntalso designed the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor.
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Another famous man of the time designed the gardens at Biltmore.He was Frederick Law Olmsted. He is most famous for designingCentral Park in New York City and the grounds around the capitolbuilding in Washington, D-C. One of Mr. Olmsted’s first projects atBiltmore was to plant and grow the millions of flowers that would beused for the gardens there.
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Another man named Gifford Pinchot was also part of the team thatdesigned Biltmore. While there, he started the first scientificallymanaged forest in the United States. He cut diseased or dead treesand planted new ones. He improved the growth of many kinds of trees.It is because of his work that the wild forest at Biltmore has anordered and peaceful look.
Gifford Pinchot left Biltmore to start the school of forestry atYale university. Later he helped to establish the United StatesForest Service.
Biltmore is surrounded by more than one-thousand eight-hundredhectares of forest. The forest provides a wood crop that helps paythe costs of operating the estate. It was the work begun by GiffordPinchot that makes this possible.
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Today, Biltmore belongs to the grandchildren of GeorgeVanderbilt. However, it is no longer used as a private home. Manyyears ago, the family decided to open it to the public. Visitorshelp pay the cost of caring for and operating it. Biltmore employsmore than six-hundred-fifty people who work in the house andgardens.
The family says George Vanderbilt liked to have guests atBiltmore. They say he enjoyed showing it to others. Now, each year,about seven-hundred fifty-thousand people visit the Vanderbilt homein Asheville, North Carolina. The family says their grandfatherwould have liked that.
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Our program today was written by Paul Thompson. It was producedand directed by Lawan Davis. I’m Rich Kleinfeldt
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And I’m Shirley Griffith. Join us again next week for anotherreport about life in the United States on the VOA Special Englishprogram, this is America.