Asheville, North Carolina

We visited Biltmore, the estate of George Vanderbilt, constructed in the early 1890s outside of Asheville, and still owned by his descendants.  With over 178,000 sq. ft. of floor space, it is the largest privately owned home in the U.S.

The winter garden.

The 1916 Skinner pipe organ in the banquet hall.  The ceiling is 7 stories tall, and the walls are lined with Flemish tapestries from the mid-1500s.  The banquet table seats 38.

George Vanderbilt had a passion for books, as you can see when you enter his library.  It now contains half of his 22,000-volume collection.

A door at one end of the library leads to a room.  Although Vanderbilt was raised a Presbyterian, a panel in that door has a carved portrait of the Catholic saint, Peter Martyr, invoking silence with a finger raised to his lips.  The room behind that door was Vanderbilt's private study that contained 3,500 of his favorite books.

Main stairwell.

We toured the gardens designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.  Olmsted, a preeminent landscape architect, was influential in convincing Vanderbilt to become the first American landowner to implement scientific forestry, the management and conservation of forest lands, on a large scale.  Vanderbilt established the Biltmore School of Forestry, the nation's first to provide professional training for foresters.

As we were walking to our restaurant in Asheville, we met Spiderman.

And had supper at the Laughing Seed Cafe.

This bronze cat overlooks "rat alley."

The Well Played Cafe has a selection of 500 board games you can choose from to play while you drink your coffee.

After supper we listened to a street musician...

and visited Malaprops Bookstore.

We found a flat iron near Asheville's Flatiron Building.