The Weynand Blog

We enjoyed the view outside the Biltmore House. Those are the Blue Ridge mountains in the background.

The Biltmore Estate

Asheville is famous for the Biltmore Estate, which contains the largest home in the world: a 175,000 square foot castle built by George Washington Vanderbilt in 1895. It’s now open to the public. We had bought our tickets the day before and arrived at the Biltmore around 11:00 am. We spent a few hours touring the house, which contains 4 floors that include a library, an indoor swimming pool, a bowling alley and a 4-story chandelier. It was all very state of the art for the 19th century.

After touring the house we had a cranky baby on our hands. We stopped at a bench to feed her, then went walking. We toured the gardens, which were just a short distance from the mansion. The flowers probably weren’t as pretty as the are in the spring, but they were still beautiful. There was so much more to see on the estate, but we were getting hungry. We decided to save the rest of it for another day and went to find some lunch.

Eisley enjoyed the hammock near the pond outside our cabin.

We made our way to Biltmore Villiage, an area of Asheville constructed for the workers who helped build Mr. Vanderbilt’s house. Now the area is full of chic retail establishments and restaurants. We found a place called La Paz that looked child-friendly. It was standard Mexican fare and was surprisingly good for being so far from the border. After our late lunch, we walked around the villiage, venturing into some of the stores. As the sun started to set, we headed back to our cabin.

Back at Willow Winds, we decided to walk down to the pond behind our cabin. We got a few good pictures of Eisley as the sun was going down. It was chilly though, so we didn’t stay out long. We spent the rest of the evening indoors.

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