The Biltmore House Opens To Friends and Family
After 6 years of construction, and with the presence of many family members, Biltmore opened on December 24, 1895. The guests enjoyed horseback riding, hunting, reading, swimming and being served by Vanderbilt's’ staff.
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Throughout the late 1890s and early 1900s George Vanderbilt and Baltimore drew the media's attention. Several newspapers including the New York Times, Ainslee’s Magazine, The Evening Telegram, and Broadway Magazine all wrote about them. Broadway Magazine (as cited in Kloman, 2001)called the Biltmore Estate “the finest estate in America”. Allen Wiley said that, “there is no mansion in the suburbs of the great eastern cities, in Newport, or in the millionaire colonies on the Jersey coast that equals it in magnificence.” Country Life in America also, called Biltmore, “The Great Model Estate of George W. Vanderbilt in North Carolina – Village, Farm, Dairy, Forest, School, Gardens, Nursery, and Herbarium, all welded into One Immense Enterprise.”
Edith Saves The House
Driven by the impact of the newly imposed taxes and the fact that the Estate was getting harder to manage economically, George W. Vanderbilt worked with the federal government on the sale of 80,000+ acres in order to keep the Estate intact. His wife, Edith, carried on her husbands efforts following his unexpected death in March 6, 1914 and saw the sale to fruition in 1915. (Kloman, 2001)
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After George Vanderbilt's death, the house was intermittently occupied by his widow until the marriage of his daughter Cornelia to John Francis Amherst Cecil in April 1924. (www.biltmore.com)
Challenging Time
When the stock market crashed on October 29, 1929, it was challenging for Ashville to be a tourist destination during such a financial crisis. On December 10, 1929 the Ashville Area Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution that asked Cornelia and her husband John F. A. Cecil to open the Biltmore Estate to the public. The resolution noted the interest that had been created in Ashville when George Vanderbilt built that great home. It mentioned how generous he had been to allow people to drive by on a scenic tour to view the house and how he issued annual passes to those who might pass frequently by the estate such as the one given to Bishop James M. Horner in 1908. (Kloman, 2001) The Chamber of Commerce was willing to help in any way possible to make this a reality. The Chamber of Commerce was willing to do all the advertising necessary to publicize the opening of the house. Biltmore House was the primary residence of the Cecils until 1930 when the estate and the principal rooms of the mansion were opened to the public.
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The Biltmore Opens to the Public
According to www.biltmore.com website, The Cecil’s family decided to open the Biltmore House to the public on March 15, 1930. Admission would be $2 for adults and $1 for children under the age of twelve. Opening Biltmore House to the public helped Asheville survive the Great depression and gave the Cecil family some income to help with the Estate maintenance. (Kloman, 2001) The Chamber of Commerce expected a large number of visitors for the opening ceremony. In the Ashville Citizen Times article in March 12, 1930, the Chamber of Commerce urged local citizens to come early to avoid the rush that was sure to come later in the day.
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Mrs. Cecil's Welcoming Speech
When the Biltmore House opened to the public on March 15, 1930, newspapers, photographers, and visitors from all over were there. Mrs. Cecil gave the following short speech, “First of all I want to thank you for the nice things you have just said. Mr. Cecil and I hope that through opening Biltmore House to the public, Asheville and Western North Carolina will derive all the benefit they deserve and that the people who go through the house and the estate will get as much pleasure and enjoyment out of it as Mr. Cecil and I do in making it possible."
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Biltmore during World War II
On January 9, 1943 Biltmore was closed due to World War II. The house remained closed until the war ended. In 1942 the “works of art from the National Gallery in Washington D.C. were stored in Baltimore House.” After fear for their safety was gone they were returned to the Gallery in 1944. The house reopened in 1944. (http://www.biltmore.com/visit/biltmore-house-gardens/estate-history)
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With the failure of the marriage of Cornelia and John F. A. Cecil, Mrs. Cecil departed the estate; however, Mr. Cecil maintained his residence in the bachelors’ wing until his death in 1954. Their eldest son George Cecil, who had also resided here since his return to the estate, married Nancy Owen in May 1955. They occupied rooms in the bachelors’ wing until 1956 when they removed to Eastcote. At this point Biltmore House ceased to be a family residence. Since then Biltmore House has continued to be operated as a historic house museum, with increasing portions of the house opened to viewing. (http://www.nps.gov/nhl/designations/samples/nc/biltmore.pdf).
Biltmore is Saved for the Second Time
The two brothers, George and William Cecil, took control of the company in 1962. (Ashville Citizen Times, 1962.)When William returned to North Carolina to run the Biltmore Company, the house and company with 100 employees were a money losing proposition. |
It was, now, time for William to assume the responsibility for bringing the estate back to its formal glory and to make it a successful business. It took him almost a decade to finally turn a profit, the first year in the black (1968) totaled $16.24 profit. (http://www.historync.org) In a speech given at the University School of Business, British Columbia, William gave his reason of returning to Biltmore and trying to make it a successful business. “In early 1960s Biltmore Estate was losing $250,000 a year. The depression, WWII, and the fact that cost involved in operating the property were enormous and skyrocketing daily had all created financial hardships for the estate. It would have been much easier to stay at Chase Manhattan Bank, where I was working. And I might have, except that someone told me that saving my “white elephant” was impossible. That was the only gauntlet that I needed.”(as cited in Kloman, 2001).
Biltmore was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963. (National Historic Land Nomination, 2003, p. 5)