Today we went to the Biltmore Estate. This house was built for George Vanderbilt III and completed in 1895. It has 4 acres of floor space, 33 family and guest bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, 3 kitchens an indoor swimming pool and the most amazing woodwork you have ever seen. The wood panelling, flooring, ceiling plaster, marble, stone carvings and furniture are unbelievable. I told Rick that the woodwork in one end of the dining room alone was probably worth half a million. The house is constructed with steel beams and brick, stone and marble. It was built to be fireproof. This is not even a complete picture of the house.
You are not allowed to take pictures inside the house but the next two pics were taken off the back porch, which is unlike any other porch I've seen. The view is spectacular.
This is me on the back porch beside one of the many pillars and you only see about a quarter of that pillar.
The rest of these pictures are from the grounds around the house, it encompasses 125,000 acres of forests, farms and a dairy. The dairy has been turned into a winery. They grow their own grapes and make wine. We went on a tour of the winery, I thought it was a WHINERY, and was sure I'd feel at home there, but it turned out to be a winery instead. I wasn't comfortable at first but by the time we finished tasting I felt pretty good. (JUST KIDDING)
This evening we came home, finished off the stew I'd made yesterday and are watching Survivor. We haven't been able to watch it often enough to really become attached to any of the players, so we don't care who goes.
Tomorrow we'll begin our journey toward Texas in ernest. Don't know of anything that will be interesting enough to detain us but it will take 2 or 3 days to get there. We don't like to drive over about 300 miles in a day and our "general rule" is to park before dark. So Wyatt, we're on our way, can't wait to see you. We may get to see more of our friends at Ben Hastings wedding, in Denton, TX on the 8th. Look forward to that.
Love to all!
mk
What a clever song choice for this post! Brick House, I love it! Is that referring to you, or the Biltmore? :)
ReplyDeleteAww, she's a brick house! She's mighty, mighty, just lettin' all hang out! Love the song, Rick! I know Marilyn couldn't have been responsible for that. The whinery. That was funny. Good post.
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