Jill Barth
| Special to USA TODAY 10Best
On Christmas Eve 1895, George Vanderbilt opened his country home in Asheville, North Carolina to his family and friends. They were welcomed into a massive and beautiful space, a 250-room French Renaissance chateau featuring 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces, with every nook decorated to the nines for the festive holiday season.
For the previous six years, Vanderbilt had coordinated a team of skilled craftsmen, building an atmosphere of quality and hospitality in preparation for the day on which he, and those close to him, could enjoy the expansive estate and exquisite Blue Ridge Mountains. This moment set the stage for a level of hospitality that remains unmatched still today.
For the next three decades, this family of philanthropists grew, as Vanderbilt and his descendants occupied the chateau. But the events of the 1930s, as banks crashed and dust ravaged the Great Plains, took Biltmore Estate in a new direction. Under the shadow of the Great Depression, the Vanderbilt family opened the property and grounds to the public, to build tourism in the area and realize a new stream of revenue from visitor admissions.
This legacy flourishes today, as Biltmore Estate is counted among…
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