A modest little shack

I haven't been getting an early start in the morning -- this is vacation -- so I left Cherokee at about 10:00 on Thursday. The Blue Ridge Parkway begins in Cherokee, just outside the Great Smoky Park. I took it. The signs say the speed limit is 45 mph, but with the hills and curves I rarely got that fast. The drive is lovely and most of the frequent overlooks provide fine views of the Blue Ridge Mountains (and allow faster traffic to pass). But after an hour I decided I didn't want to spend another two to get to Asheville. So I took the exit and was soon on I-40.

Back in the 1800s Cornelius Vanderbilt made piles of money on railroads. In the late 1880s his grandson George bought 8000 acres near Asheville and built his house, Biltmore Estate. It was completed in 1895. It is the largest single-family residence in America at over 177,000 square feet, more than 140 times the size of my modest house. In addition, he hired Frederick Law Olmsted to landscape the grounds (most of which was reverted from farmland to forest).

I took the audio tour -- I was given a device and at each of the 39 sites I tapped in the number and put it to my ear. They suggested the tour might take 2 hours. I took nearly 3.

The second room to view is the formal dining room. We're told it measures 40 feet by 70 feet, or 2800 square feet, more than twice the size of my house. Some have remarked the room doesn't look big, but the whole house is on such a large scale. This dining room includes a pipe organ, which automatically plays about every half hour (an organist is hired for special occasions).

After touring a few of the bedrooms (I think there are 32 in the house) and the servant areas (and hearing about the daily duties) I realized this isn't just a home, it is also a resort for the well connected. Guests would come for perhaps weeks at a time to be entertained by the Vanderbilts and their staff.

When hearing about how the super-rich treat their servants I look for whether the servants are exploited. It appears in this case the Vanderbilts rewarded their servants well. The rooms in the servant quarters are nicer than in most mansions and Edith Vanderbilt honored servants at holidays, birthdays, and such. Some families served the Vanderbilts for 2 or 3 generations. Even so, the chief cook did not have a bedroom like George Vanderbilt's.

My pricey entry ticket included access to the winery and village (whether I wanted to visit or not) and the exit road out of the estate made sure I passed all these areas (it took 20 minutes from the time I got to my car until I got to the outside world).

From the estate gate to my cousin's house near Charlotte took two hours.

On Friday I spent time with my aunt, Dad's sister. She is in an assisted living home and doing pretty well for 87. I told her about my trip so far and about family news.

Today most of my cousin's family is lounging about, when not freaking out about school starting on Monday. Both of his kids are in middle school. My cousin, his son, and I took bicycles into a Charlotte park for about a 45 minute ride. If I was on my own bike we could have gone farther, but his daughter's bike was a bit small for me and I couldn't get the power for hills.