Biltmore House in Asheville was designed by Richard Morris Hunt for George Washington Vanderbilt II, with Frederick Law Olmsted designing the landscape. It was built from 1889 to 1895 and opened to guests on Christmas Eve 1895, using about 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons. The style is Châteauesque, modeled on French Renaissance châteaux.
It has four stories and a 375-foot (114 m) east facade, in Indiana limestone with Guastavino tile vaults and a slate roof with 16 chimneys. Its 250 rooms include a 70-foot (21 m) barrel-vaulted Banquet Hall, a Winter Garden, a 107-step grand staircase and a library of over 10,000 volumes. Floor space is given as 178,926 square feet in one place and 4 acres in another.
The house opened to the public in 1930 and stopped being a family residence in 1956. Hurricane Helene forced a closure in 2024, and the estate reopened in November. It draws about 1.4 million visitors a year.
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