The Inn on Biltmore Estate offers luxurious hotel and cottage accommodations on an historic 8,000-acre estate. The Biltmore House is a chateau-style mansion near the city of Asheville, North Carolina that was built between 1888 and 1895 by George Washington Vanderbilt. Building the Biltmore was one of the largest undertakings that the history of American residential architecture had ever seen. An entire community of craftsmen from every specialty worked to build America's premier home. At the time, the construction site boasted its own brick factory, woodworking shop, and railway that span three-miles for transporting materials to and from the estate.
The home is the largest privately owned home of its kind in the United States standing at a majestic 175,000 square feet, that's over four acres of floor space. In 1956, Vanderbilt's only child, Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt and her husband, John Amherst Cecil, opened Biltmore House to the public as a house museum. Visitors from all over the world come to marvel at the room estate, including a 70,000-gallon indoor swimming pool, two-story library, and bowling alley.
The rooms of the estate are filled with furniture, artwork, and novelties from the 19th-century. Yet, behind the scenes are renovated amenities like elevators, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms, and a state of the art intercom system. Pipes under the bass pond pump out debris filled rainwater under the lakebed.
The grounds span over 8,000 acres and besides the house, features approximately 75 acres of formal gardens and a large winery. The ground's design work came from the muse of Frederick Law Olmsted, the creator of New York's Central Park and the father of American landscape architecture. Here Olmsted established America's first managed forest.
Today, guests can experience Biltmore's warm and gracious hospitality during their stay at the Inn. Amenities include a world-class fitness center, outdoor pool and hot tub, the library located off the main lobby, and complimentary shoe shines. Outdoor activities on the estate include horseback trail rides, fly-fishing excursions, and river float trips. Reservations are recommended with the estate's concierge.
Guests can also stay at the Cottage on the estate. Richard Howland Hunt, the son of Biltmore House architect Richard Morris Hunt, designed the cottage. The home originally served as the residence of Biltmore's market gardener and today welcomes its guests to an exclusive VIP getaway featuring a butler who will attend to every need.
The grounds and buildings of the estate have appeared in several major motion picture movies including The Last of the Mohicans (1992), Forrest Gump (1994), Hannibal (2001), and National Treasure (2004) to name a few.
Construction is currently underway for the new Antler Hill Village, located adjacent to the Winery and River Bend Farm on the estate. The pedestrian-friendly village will open in 2010 and offer a new exhibition space, live entertainment venue, dining, shopping and a new outdoor adventure center. Other future renovation plans include the restoration of the Louis XV Suite, the Oak Sitting Room, and the Second Floor Living Hall in 2012.
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