" "
Home Tag Archives: Gilded Age

Tag Archives: Gilded Age

Biltmore Evolves From Gilded Age Estate to 21st-century Attraction

the Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina

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.