My Favorite Things at Biltmore

Because I love music, and enjoy playing the piano, I loved seeing them in the home.  The one above is in the sitting room adjacent to the library - also called the tapestry room.  You can see one of the lovely tapestries on the wall behind the piano.

This piano is in the upstairs family living room, adjacent to the master bedrooms.

This piano is in the music room.  I love the harp design.

I believe this piano was in the basement.  My first piano was an upright, so I felt deep affection for this one.

I love art, and the home is chock-full of priceless treasures by famous painters.  My favorite is this one of Mrs. Vanderbilt because I love, love, love wearing hats.  Flamboyant, right? 

I also loved this ceiling treatment, and I'm planning on using it in my home.

This ceiling treatment is in the music room.  Very unique.

There were many, many fireplaces, which I love.  This sitting area in the tapestry room, with the tea set up, was so inviting. I love the colors.  Wouldnt you love to sit here for a while and enjoy a cuppa?

After visiting the upper floors, we toured the basement area.  This floor includes the indoor pool, billiard room, men's smoking room, trophy room (with many taxidermied animals on the wall), gymnasium, kitchen, pantries, and . . . and the IRONING ROOM. The only thing I dread more than sewing is ironing.  I'm so thankful for permanent press.  Because I reared two daughters, ironing was a big part of my life for many years.  I cannot imagine the heavy, laborious work involved in cleaning and then ironing the clothes worn in the late 1800's and early 1900's. . . and in North Carolina . . .  in the summer. . .  with no air conditioning, it had to be miserable.

Just think of all of the clothing, plus the linens
 

Doing laundry was no small task back then.  Seeing all of this made me so grateful for the modern-day conveniences I enjoy.

When we first came into the basement, we saw this painting on the walls.  Because I love birds, I liked it:

There were other paintings on the walls that had dark themes.  The whole room gave me a bad feeling.  I found out later, it was painted for Halloween, and that explains my aversion to it.

I found the basement area to be the most interesting, especially the kitchen.  My shots did not turn out well, but thankfully this one did.  The two round objects on the table are butter molds.  I have one of these that belonged to my paternal grandmother, and I treasure it.

Now, on to my absolute favorite part of the tour - the gardens and the garden gift shop.

Unfortunately, my shots of the gardens did not turn out well because we were in a time crunch.  I took them quickly and wound up with blurry shots.  Here are a couple that turned out okay:

We didn't walk through the garden.  There is a driveway around the garden and the photos were taken from our car.

The greenhouse was gorgeous. 

We parked the car at the entrance to the garden, and I was enthralled by the things I saw:

I've never seen this plant before, but isn't is amazing?  Every time I look at plants and flowers, I'm in awe of Adonai's creativity.

This swing really made me swoon:

My grandson would have loved this cute train a few years back when he was enamored with Thomas the Train.  It was for sale . . . only about $3,000.  Yikes!

But here is where I fell into a swoon.  I love birds and garden art.

Birdhouses, bird paintings. bird cages . . . lots of bird everything.  

We have to build an archway like this.  Our yard has lots of branches and grapevines, so I know we could do it.    I can just see it at the entrance to Golden Pond, with my beautiful purple passion flowers growing on it.

I got ahold of myself and only bought one thing -- a rusty, little sparrow to put in my kitchen window.  I'd seen them elsewhere for $15.99, and I got this one for only $6.50. I love a bargain! Happy dance!!!  Doesn't she look happy to be at Golden Cottage?  She sure makes me happy!

Well, Gail-Friends, that's the end of my post about Biltmore.  I really enjoyed it while we were there.  After we finished the tour, my historian husband told me about the Vanderbilts. The history he shared, and the fact that the Vanderbilts were anti-semites, made me sick and sad.  If I'd known that, I'd never have paid good money to go through their house.  But because my husband loves me, and he knew a visit to Biltmore had been a long-time bucket list item, he never said a word about it beforehand.  You can look it up and study the history of the family for yourself.


My next post will be about our visit to some historic sites related to the Civil War.  Jem is writing a book about the history of the 7th Louisiana regiment, in which his great-great grandfather served.  I'll also share a bit more of the beautiful fall color we saw on the trip.

I'm happy to tell you that I'm putting the finishing touches on my book, titled Golden Moments.  It will be published through Create Space by the end of the year.  

Blessings and shalom to y'all, dear Gail-Friends.  

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I sometimes share my posts with these friends: 

Spiritual Sundays     GRAND Social      Modest Mom Monday Link-up      The Art of Homemaking Mondays
   BLOGGING GRANDMOTHERS LINK PARTYTitus 2 Tuesday       TITUS TUESDAYS @CORNERSTONE CONFESSIONS    Share Your Cup Wednesday Wordless Wednesdays    Classical Homemaking Link-Up        Favorite Things Home and Garden Thursday at Delightsome Life  Paula's Weekend No Rules Blog Party Friendship Friday

Vacation and Biltmore Estate #2

Because I'm a former librarian, and a voracious reader, the library of Biltmore House was my favorite of all the rooms.  The second floor of the house opens onto the library, as you can see in the photo above.  The shelves on the lower level can be reached with the use of the ladder in the photo below. I have a giant crush on it.  Big sigh . . .

 And this globe, too.  It is huge.

Here's Jem perusing the titles.  There are over 20,000 books in the house but not all are in the library.  We found books in almost every room and in many of the hallways.  The Vanderbilts were evidently avid readers, too. They also provided books as part of the entertainment for the many guests who frequented the estate. I'll tell you about the other diversions they provided in my next post.

This is the stairway leading up to the second floor, which is the family area.  There are other stairways, but none so lavish as this one.  There is also an elevator, which was installed years after the house was opened.

As promised, here a few photos of Mrs. Vanderbilt's bedroom.  I love yellow walls with white furniture, so this really appealed to me. The accents of black and gold are stunning, right? 

This window looks out over the back lawn, forest and mountains.  What a view to wake up to in the early morning!  Her gorgeous writing desk sits next to the window.  Notice the inlaid wood on the side and the checkerboard pattern on the writing surface. 

 Her dressing table sits close by between the next two windows.

Look at the floors, the rugs, the mirrors, the candelabras, the fireplace, the flowers, the mirrors, the furniture.  The details are extravagant, right?  Absolutely because, as I said in my last post, the Vanderbilts were filthy rich and spared no expense.  Most of the furnishings of the house were imported from Europe.  In a future post, I'll tell you how they made their fortune and about their character.  Not a good story, Gail-Friends.

 And here is Mrs. Vanderbilt's bed.  Nice, but wait till you see his.

In between their bedrooms is a sitting room with a fireplace, a place for dining, and many more books. Notice the ceilings and the carvings in the paneling.  Also the details of the doors.  I noticed most of the furniture is intricately carved.  Victorians were famous for that, and I adore it.  But, can you imagine the dusting the poor servants had to do?  And not just dusting, because all of the wood had to be polished with oil, including the floors and the paneling.   Now the staff does this work, of course, but it is still a lot of work, even with modern machines and cleaning products. 

 There is also a dumb waiter between the two bedrooms.  This was like an elevator and enabled the trays of food and drink to be brought up without walking up the stairs.  Very high-tech for that period.

And here is Mr Vanderbilts bedroom.  Quite kingly, don't you think?  

Notice the fan sitting on the floor.  We visited in mid-October, and the temperatures were in the low to mid-70's.  The fans helped, but it was a bit warm in the house.  Most of the many large windows were open, so it was tolerable.  I can't imagine visiting in mid-summer because it has to be miserable.  The house does not have central air-conditioning or heating.  Heating is done wtih radiators. The house does have bathrooms with toilets, bathtubs, sinks, and running water.

I'll be doing one more post about Biltmore, so stop by next week to see a bit more of the house, the garden, and the grounds.  I'll also show you some of the gift shop in the garden area, which was my favorite of all the shops.  I found a real treasure there.

Blessings to you, Gail-Friends.

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I sometimes share my posts with these friends: 

Spiritual Sundays     GRAND Social      Modest Mom Monday Link-up      The Art of Homemaking Mondays
   BLOGGING GRANDMOTHERS LINK PARTYTitus 2 Tuesday       TITUS TUESDAYS @CORNERSTONE CONFESSIONS    Share Your Cup Wednesday Wordless Wednesdays    Classical Homemaking Link-Up        Favorite Things Home and Garden Thursday at Delightsome Life  Paula's Weekend No Rules Blog Party Friendship Friday