historic,  travel

Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina

January 28, 2026 /

A couple days before the end of our Christmas school break, we took an overnight trip to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina. It is about a 3h45 min drive from us, so we spent the night in Asheville before heading to the estate. The Christmas decor was still up, but the admission price had gone back down after the increased prices of the Christmas season. It was still expensive ($75 per adult 17+, ($45 for children, but free for the 8 year old), but much more affordable. I definitely do think it is worth visiting while all the trees and decor are up because it created a very nice ambiance.

The construction for the estate began in 1889 and is a 250 room estate and is the largest one of its kind in the US. It took 6 years to be built. “The finished home contains more than four acres of floor space, including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces”. The estate is surrounded by 8000 acres of land, but originally was 125,000 acres! The view are just magnificent and we could just imagine how it looks in the spring.

The tree above is a wisteria and I could just see how majestic it would look in bloom.

The Biltmore estate is still privately owned by the descendants of the Vanderbilts and was opened to the public starting in 1930. It increases tourism in the area as well as helped pay for the upkeep of the estate. One of the room kept precious art from the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC) behind steel doors during WWII with few people knowing about it.

I think that the Christmas decor still being up made the visit really special. It was beautiful! Imagine hosting a dinner in the banquet hall: the dining table can seat 64 guests and the room has 3 fireplaces. The tapestries you see below are Flemish taspestries from the 16th century. The ceiling is 70 ft high!

The library was really beautiful with the walls covered in books. There is a gallery at the top that you can access from another floor.

We really enjoyed the visit: it is wild to think that certain people had these kind of lifestyles.

So would I recommend visiting the Biltmore Estate? Yes, I would. It is probably not something I would do more than a couple times in a life time, but apart from the house itself, the property is beautiful and there are many things you can do. There is a winery with wine tasting, a shopping area, paths for walking and biking, some ponds. We saw remnants of a sunflower field. If I lived in the area, it would be tempting to get a year pass to be able to access the outdoors for sure. I would recommend going right after the Christmas price drops or during the spring when things are blooming.

A bientôt!

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