Biltmore Estate

Biltmore Estate rises above the French Broad River near Asheville, North Carolina, designed by the architect Richard Morris Hunt in a French Chateauesque style for the industrialist George Washington Vanderbilt II and completed in 1895 after six years of construction. At more than 175,000 square feet it remains the largest privately built house in the United States, its steeply pitched slate roofs, turrets and elaborately carved limestone facade modeled on the Renaissance chateaux of France's Loire Valley. The landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of New York's Central Park, laid out its grounds and gardens as his last major commission, treating the surrounding forest as a working managed landscape rather than only ornamental scenery. The house remains privately owned by Vanderbilt's descendants and operates as a house museum and tourist attraction.