Linda Bell lives her life by statistics and is afraid to fly. One day her friend, Chuck, asks her, "Why do have this irrational fear of flying?"

His seven older siblings thought he was crazy. Heirs to one of America’s biggest fortunes in the 19th century, they lived in mansions in Manhattan and on lavish estates in Newport, Rhode Island. But little Georgie Vanderbilt, a bachelor devoted to his mother, spent his money buying up land in the wilds of western North Carolina and set out building a home where he and mama could breathe clean mountain air. Family members scoffed.