You only need to look at the Library at Biltmore House to understand how important books were to George Vanderbilt. Throughout much of his adult life, he read an average of 81 books per year, or one and a half books every week. A New York journalist who knew him wrote of Vanderbilt: “He was a bookworm, a student… I doubt not, he is one of the best read men in the country.” Given his literary leanings, it’s not surprising that he counted several prominent writers of the day among his friends.

Edith Wharton was born into New York society the same year as George Vanderbilt and moved in the same social circles, so it’s likely that the two knew each other most of their lives. Wharton rented the Vanderbilts’ apartment on the Left Bank in Paris from 1907 to 1910. She also visited Biltmore twice that we know of: her signature can be found in Biltmore’s guest book, dated November 1902 and December 1905. On December 26, 1905, she sent this correspondence from Biltmore to her friend Sara Norton:

Yesterday we had a big Xmas fete for the 350 people on the estate – a
tree 30 ft. high, Punch & Judy, conjuror, presents & “refreshments.”
It would have interested you, it was done so well & sympathetically,
each person’s wants being thought of, from mother to last baby.
      (From The Letters of Edith Wharton)

During this holiday visit, the author signed a copy of the recently published The House of Mirth: “To George Vanderbilt from Edith Wharton, Biltmore House, Christmas 1905.”

The novelist Henry James—author of Portrait of a Lady and Daisy Miller—was a friend of Edith Wharton and also an acquaintance of George Vanderbilt. He stayed at Biltmore in the winter of 1905.

One of George Vanderbilt’s closest friends was Paul Leicester Ford, an author who was well known in his time as a biographer of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Ford had an affluent upbringing in Brooklyn and it’s believed that he met Vanderbilt at New York’s Grolier Club—a famous association of bibliophiles where both men were members. They became close friends. Ford was a guest at Biltmore in December 1899 and came to the 1901 New Year’s Eve house party. 

In 1898, he spent several weeks at Biltmore while working on his novel, Janice Meredith: A Story of the American Revolution. 

When Janice Meredith was published the following year, it contained a dedication to George Vanderbilt:

…And so, as I have read the proofs of this book I have found more than once that the pages have faded out of sight and in their stead I have seen Mount Pisgah and the French Broad River, or the ramp and terrace of Biltmore House, just as I saw them when writing the words which served to recall them to me. With the visions, too, has come a recurrence to our long talks, our work amongst the books, our games of chess, our cups of tea, our walks, our rides, and our drives. It is therefore a pleasure to me that the book so naturally gravitates to you, and that I may make it a remembrance of the past weeks of companionship….

Janice Meredith sold over 200,000 copies and was adapted for the stage in 1901. In 1902, Ford tragically died in at the hand of his brother.

While George Vanderbilt was not himself a writer, his love of literature created a legacy that we can still admire today in the nearly 24,000-volume collection at Biltmore, part of which is on display at the Library.

Statesman! Lumberman! Engineer! Forester! Come! And be welcome!

Come as you are, and take us as we are!

Come! Rejoice with us!

And join us in giving thanks on Thanksgiving Day, 1908.

Dr. Carl Schenck’s Biltmore Forest Fair invitation, 1908

Biltmore forester Dr. Carl Schenck had reason to celebrate in 1908. After 13 years at Biltmore (including 10 years as director the Biltmore Forest School), he had helped to transform what was a barren landscape of overused terrain into America’s first managed forest, a model for the rest of the country. To increase public awareness of the revolutionary achievements on Biltmore’s 100,000-plus acres of forested land, he planned the three-day Biltmore Forest Fair over the Thanksgiving holiday, 1908. “This event will mark an epoch in American forestry,” proclaimed The American Lumberman.

An invitation to the Forest Fair was extended to 400 people, including President-elect William Howard Taft. “You may have heard something of the farms and of the forests found on the Biltmore Estate,” the invitation read. “Now we beg of you: Come and see them for yourself!” Although the president didn’t attend, about 100 people did, including educators, furniture manufacturers, and many timber industry executives from across the US.

Dr. Schenck overlooked no detail in the planning of the festival, including providing advice for attendees on what to wear: “Do not don your best! Select a rough, comfortable suit of
clothes and a pair of shoes in which you may walk a quarter of a mile without the sensation of “walking on a toothache.” In advance of arrival, each guest received a 55-page booklet full of details on how Schenck planted and maintained the forest, including the number of trees planted on various sections of the estate and how much each section cost.

The fair started on Thanksgiving Day, 1908 with a procession of 15 open carriages “decorated in the Biltmore Forest School colors of green and white,” that made its way from the swanky Battery Park Hotel in downtown Asheville to Biltmore Village. Once on the estate, attendees followed their “tireless leader up and down mountain trails” as he “brushed aside apparently impassible thickets.” What he said is lost to time as “the rapid movements of Dr. Schenck and the rustling of innumerable fallen leaves” made it hard to take exact notes. The group inspected tree plantings across the estate, then enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at the Battery Park Inn during which Schenck led a toast to George Vanderbilt: “a nobly spirited American and as high-principled a man as I ever met.” One attendee reported that the dinner was “in no case indecorous,” but had been “so thorough in a hospitable sense that most of the participants were disinclined to rise at a reasonable early hour” the next day.

On the Friday following Thanksgiving, participants visited the Biltmore herbarium, plant nurseries, dairy, pig farm, and poultry farm, then enjoyed a possum hunt. A gala dinner was held on Friday evening and on Saturday, the group made their way to the lumber camps, enjoyed a fishing and shooting contest, and ended the day on Mt. Pisgah in time for sunset, then spent the night “under the stars” at Buck Spring Lodge. Throughout the Forest Fair, an attendee reported that the weather was “of that kind that which no memory can recall any nearer perfection and the scenery so beautiful that “none left the spot willingly.”

The Biltmore Forest School closed in 1913, but Dr. Schenck’s legacy in Western North Carolina can still be felt today by all those who enjoy the pristine beauty of Pisgah National Forest, the forest he helped to establish.

Images courtesy of The Forest History Society

Biltmore’s conservation staff undertakes conservation and preservation activities including examination, technical analysis, documentation (written and photographic), conservation and preservation related research, and conservation treatment of Biltmore collection objects.

The photo above shows our team working to catalog and store the almost 4,000 pieces of china and glassware in the Butler’s Pantry in Biltmore House. Most plates are stored in stacks, but some are too fragile and would crack from the weight of the other plates. Biltmore’s conservation team developed a system for storing the plates and using archival foam blocks to prevent damage.

Here are a few more of their current projects…

Conservators Anne Battram, Nancy Rosebrock, and Genvieve Bieniosek are treating the 67 Banquet Hall chairs, one at a time. The seats are stuffed with the original Spanish moss, plant material, and unidentified animal hair, all of which will be returned to the seat before it’s covered in fabric that is an exact reproduction of the original. The project will take more than two years to complete.

This ivory figurine is tucked in display case on the Second Floor that can sometimes go unnoticed by guests. While in the Objects Lab recently, our conservators were able to get some detailed images and take a peek inside.

On the desk of Objects Conservator Renee Jolly: These switchplates were pulled from storage in the sub-basement of Biltmore House. Renee is in the process of evaluating the original hardware throughout the house and researching the original materials and appearances.

Call buttons from obsolete switchplates throughout Biltmore House.