BIRTHDAY!

On the morning of my 75th birthday, I stepped out onto the balcony of our condo for Curt to take my picture before we (Curt, myself, Mark and Debi) departed for , to me, a much anticipated drive to Asheville, N. Carolina and a visit to Biltmore House. Biltmore is the largest private residence in America and a visit there "is to cross the threshold into a world of hospitality, beauty, and luxury that has remained unchanged for more than a century, and is being preserved for many generations yet to come."



It truly was like stepping back in time; and I enjoyed the day tremendously.


It was six years in the building, and was first opened to family and friends on Christmas Eve in 1895.



This 250 -room mansion featured 33 family and guest bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens and an indoor bowling alley and swimming pool.


"No residence in America offers a more authentic, original, and inspiring view of life at the end of the 1800's. Faithfully preserved and filled with thousands of original furnishing, it's rooms suggest that the Vanderbilts, their friends, and employees are still at home. It is four-stories of living quarters and a"downstairs" domain of kitchens, laundries, gymnasium, servants' bedrooms and dining room, vegetable pantry, walk-in refrigerators, and other areas necessary to the smooth-flowing operation of a household constantly filled with guests...among them European royalty, ambassadors, politicians, industrialists, artists, entertainers etc."
And on this day, we had come to call.
















It includes five gardens, a working farm, stables, a winery, and much more.

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