Tut, Tut --- At the Biltmore

 

    The Biltmore Estate includes an exhibition venue called Deer Park.  Until January 2026, the venue is hosting an exhibit called "Tutankhamun," a huge exhibit featuring nearly 1,000 replicas of objects discovered in King Tut's tomb in 1922 by an expedition led by Howard Carter.  ( Exhibition Website ) Tut, and the discovery, have been the stuff of legend ever since.  A huge wave of Egypt-mania swept Europe and the US following the discovery, shaping fashion, architecture, and popular culture for at least a decade.  Interest in the young boy-king and his mysterious life and death has persisted ever since.  Why is this exhibition at the Biltmore?  (Besides making money, I mean.)  There is a connection.  Like many scholarly wealthy people of the late 1800s and early 1900s, George Vanderbilt, the builder of Biltmore, dabbled in Egyptology, but there's more.  George and Edith Vanderbilt's only child, Cornelia, married her first husband, John Cecil, the first secretary of the British Embassy in Washington and an aristocrat.  His  parents were Lord and Lady William Cecil.  While Lord Cecil was a career military officer, Mary Cecil, the Baroness Amherst of Hackney, occupied her time with charity work, ornithology, and archaeology.  She personally financed and participated expeditions that uncovered 22 significant Egyptian tombs near Aswan; those tombs were referred to as the "Cecil Tombs" for years.  

    With the recent opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum, it is unlikely that the genuine Tutankhamun artifacts will tour much, if at all, in the future, so this exhibit at Biltmore represents an unmatched opportunity to see the treasures, even if they are replicas.  The replicas are impeccably crafted, fully immersing viewers in the illusion.  After a short video, the doors open to Tutankhamun's afterlife, first as Carter saw the jumbled artifacts through the original small peephole.  

    It's all there, everything you've seen photos of: the sarcophagi, the mask, the jewelry, the miniature carved servants, the chariot, the golden statues of Tut, the canopic jars, the chairs, etc.  Each replica is a craft masterpiece.  

    

The Biltmore - Asheville

 

    At 179,000 square feet of floor space, the Biltmore House is the largest privately-owned residence in the United States, containing 250 rooms including 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces. It represents the epitome of Gilded Age excess.  First opened to the public for tours in 1930, it now draws 1.4 million visitors annually, but this was my first visit.

    

    The builder of Biltmore was George Vanderbilt, the grandson of Gilded Age tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, the "Commodore," who became one of the wealthiest men in American and world history and the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family, making his fortune in shipping, railroads, and other industries.  In the 1880s, George and his mother visited the Asheville area from time to time, taking advantage of the region's reputation for natural beauty and wellness facilities. He fell in love with the location and decided to build his own "summer house"  there.  He purchased 125,000 acres that included forests, farms, and part of a small town and went to work on construction plans.  George was a voracious reader and spent a lot of time traveling in Europe, so he envisioned a French-Renaissance style chateau as the template.  He hired one of America's leading architects, Richard Morris Hunt, a long-time Vanderbilt collaborator, and America's leading landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, to design the forests and gardens, and work commenced in 1889.  Vanderbilt purchased furnishings and antiquities from around Europe to fill the mansion, and over a thousand workmen labored for nearly six years, with Vanderbilt officially opening the house to family and friends on Christmas Eve, 1895.  The construction cost was a staggering $5 million then, about $189 million in today's dollars.

John Singer Sargent portrait of George, photo of wife Edith and their only child Cornelia

Sargent portraits of Olmsted and Hunt that hang in Biltmore

    In 1898, George Vanderbilt married Edith Stuyvesant, and their only child, Cornelia, was born in 1900.  For the next 14 years, the family lived in the home and entertained dozens of family members and friends.  They were known for elaborate dinners and festivities, as well as for their generosity toward their employees and their families who lived on and around the estate.  Spurred by the passage of the income tax and by a desire to conserve nature, Vanderbilt began negotiations to sell 87,000 acres to the Federal government.  When he died unexpectedly following an emergency appendectomy, his wife completed the sale, and that land became the core of Pisgah National Forest.  Today, the mansion sits on just 8,000 acres.

Indoor Garden Reception                                 Billiards Room    

                                                    Banquet Dining Hall

George's Bedroom                 Edith's Bedroom

 

Many of the guest bedrooms were divided into two wings, one for ladies and one for gentlemen.

    The basement level contains an indoor pool, bowling alley, exercise room, pantries, kitchens, servants' quarters, and laundry rooms.

    Architect Richard Morris Hunt went full French Renaissance chateau mode on the exterior, adding numerous gargoyles and decorative characters.

    And no visit to Biltmore would be complete without a long walk through the beautiful formal gardens.