Asheville, NC (04-15-13)

  The Biltmore Estate is in Asheville, NC and exploring it was our first adventure in Asheville.
It was built in the late 1800s by George Vanderbilt, and is the largest home in the country that is owned by a family.

There are all kinds of specialty tours you can take- architectural, behind the scenes- etc,  but we just did the "do it yourself" tour, using a map.  No picture taking is allowed inside the house.  There are 240 rooms, and 43 bathrooms.  We were allowed to tour 44 rooms.

The stable has been turned into a restaurant- this is the loft, looking down into it.  Paul and I had lunch in a converted horse stall.

The Vanderbilts entertained extensively here in NC, usually hosting parties for at least several days, and sometimes a week or more.  By the time George died, in his 50s, their fortune was waning, and his wife Edith opened the house to the public in order to help with expenses.
The original estate was 125,000 acres because George wanted to own the land "as far as the eye can see".  Edith eventually sold much of it to the Federal Government, and its now part of Pisgah National Forest.

The gardens are extensive, with the tulip garden in full bloom.  In another few weeks, the Azaleas will be creating a sea of color.  We won't be here to see it.








Among the many people needed to care for the house and lands, George hired Carl Schenk, a forester, to take care of and maintain the many acres of forest.  Carl noticed that there was a lot of interest from local young men as to what his job entailed.  Carl approached Vanderbilt with an idea, and the result was the Biltmore School of Forestry, the first forestry school in the country.




Wealthy young men came from all over the country to learn how to maintain their family forests, which they considered to be a very valuable "crop".
We toured the Forestry museum in nearby Pisgah National Forest,and took a guided tour on the grounds that gave the history of the school.
In the course of his work, Dr Schenk created a measuring stick that he called The Biltmore Stick, that was used to measure the height and width of trees, so a determination of its value could be made.  Wood was such an important crop in the early 1900s, that the IRS even had a Tree department, people knowledgeable in estimating the value of lumber and trees.

 

The outing I was most waiting for was a trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Due to the winding roads and hills, we had decided not to tow the trailer on it, but to park in Asheville and explore the parkway in the truck. Our first venture wasn’t what I was looking for.  The fog was so thick visibility was less than 50 feet in some places. 

Not deterred, the following day we headed back up to the parkway, and finally got to see the views I was interested in seeing:

We spent a couple of days hiking in Pisgah National Forest, which has tons of hiking trails, with lots of waterfalls along the way. The weather really wasn’t very good for most of the time we were in Asheville- especially at the higher elevations, so we didn’t get to do as much as we would have liked.

Dozer enjoyed his stay in Asheville- with plenty of grass and a site that backed up to a river, there was plenty for him to do.  He just wished the weather was more favorable for us sitting outside.