In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Biltmore, North Carolina An Estate for All Seasons MANY CITY DWELLERS NEVER FULLY THRILL to the excitement of the change of seasons. The Biltmore Estate is an enclave where each season comes and goes slowly and immerses you in the rhythmic cycles of nature. August is the height of the summer season, with roses brilliantly blooming in the formal garden in pink, white, red, and other vibrant colors. September offers a sweet transition to fall. November flames out with orange and red Japanese maples dotting the paths of the shrub garden. Spring arrives in May, with colorful displays of azaleas, rhododendron, and carpets of bulbs. Each month and season bring kaleidoscopic changes in the variety of blooming plants and the color of their foliage, but the castle itself is always there, ready to welcome and please Biltmore’s many visitors. The estate vistas change dramatically according to time of day, weather, and the angle of declination of the sun. The morning mists often hang heavily over the valleys, leaving only the outlines of the mountain ridges apparent. The rose-colored sky of the setting sun creates altogether different, but pleasing impressions. George W. Vanderbilt (1862–1914) was the grandson of the “Commodore,” Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877), one of the richest men in America. Having inherited part of the Vanderbilt fortune, he decided in 1888, at the age of twenty-five, to build a French-style chateau in the style of Blois, Chenonceau, and Chambord near Asheville. He called his estate Biltmore from “Bilt,” the Dutch town from which his ancestors came, and “more” (or moor), an old English word for open, rolling land. Vanderbilt retained one of America’s great architects, Richard Morris Hunt (1828–1895), and they traveled together in the Loire Valley of France to seek inspiration. Hunt was a society architect and the first American to study at the prestigious École de Beaux-Arts in Paris. He had designed Marble House and the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, as well as the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Hunt’s four-story, 175,000–square-foot mansion of Indiana limestone, completed in 1895, took seven years to build. The 250–room chateau featured the modern conveniences of steam heat, electricity, 33 family and guest bedrooms, 65 fireplaces, elevators, three kitchens, an indoor swimming pool, and 43 bathrooms. The original wood model of the chateau, with its cantilevered staircase, can be seen today. Vanderbilt purchased more than 125,000 acres of mountain land for Biltmore, and his property extended from the west terraces of the Biltmore castle more than 18 miles to and beyond Mount Pisgah. The unspoiled 154 Discovering Garden Spots Closer to Home view-shed of the present 8,000-acre Biltmore Estate will be preserved as wilderness in perpetuity because most of Vanderbilt’s vast acreage was conveyed to the United States to establish the Pisgah National Forest. Vanderbilt retained Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903), America’s greatest landscape gardener, who sought to evoke “the overwhelming sense of the bounteousness and mystery of nature that he had experienced in the tropics.” Olmsted wanted to create “an aspect more nearly of sub-tropical luxuriance, than would occur spontaneously at Biltmore.” Olmsted had been commissioned to design Central Park in New York City and the U.S. Capitol grounds in Washington. Vanderbilt was astute enough to heed Olmsted’s advice: “Plan a small park as a foreground for the distant view, build some gardens close to the house, and devote the rest of his acres to forestry.” Charles E. Beveridge and Paul Rocheleau, Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape, p. 194 (Universe Publishing, 1998). (The quoted materials in this essay are taken from Beveridge and Rocheleau’s chapter eleven on the Biltmore Estate). Olmsted suggested that ten thousand or more native rhododendron should be planted along the three-mile approach road to the castle and mixed with appropriate plants from across the world to “achieve the effect of richness, delicacy, and mystery.” Olmsted searched for plants that would provide a variety of color and texture, plants that “increased the effect of complexity of light and shadow near the eye that was an essential element of his picturesque style.” He wanted to create an illusion of extended space along the approach and other roads on the estate. He wanted “low growing, lustrous and fine flowering plants” in the center of the valley and “dense towering walls of foliage” on the steep side slopes...

Share