Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1920-04-21
George Vanderbilts' Dream
Vanishes With the Sale of
the Model Town of Bilt-
more.
(From the Kansas City Star.)

The model town OF Blltmore, N.
c., built by the late George w. Van
derhilt in connection with his mag
nifcent country estate near Ashe-
Vile, has been sold to the Southern
Railway and two individual purchas-
ers. On the site chosen by Mr.. Van
derbilt for an adventure in Utopia,
the railway company will build two
million dollar passenger station. So
crumble the dreams of men.
How vast scheme Vanderbilt con-
ceived for developing his North Car
olina estate, no one will ever know.
From 1892 until his death IN 1914
he made it his life's work to block to-
gether 10000 acres of mountain
land, grub out the forests, plant
trees, pipe water, build roads ana
level off a mountain peak for his pa
latial home, Biltmore house. The pro-
iect cost him more than ten million
dollars.
Two wears alter his death his wild
ow transferred to the government
fifty thousand acres Of the estate for
national forest reserve. Now the
model town of Biltmore is sold, and
the millionaire's plan of rural en-
pire begins to disintegrate. Did Van
derbilt dream fools paradise on
those North Carolina hills? He is
dead: the dream is dust and ashes.
On rainy day thirty years ago,
Vanderbilts' private car was on
side track at Asheville waiting to
take the young millionaire back to
New York. After short stay he had
become disgusted with the wealth
er, the skyline, the hotel, with every
thing. He was to leave on the NOR
row. During the night the skies clear
ed and the next morning young Van
derbilt, rising early watched North
Carolina sunrise,
Standing on the piazza of the Bat
terry Park Hotel he looked away to
the north and saw the peak of the
Roam Mountain in Tennessee, sixty
miles away. Southwark was the grim
outline of Caesars Head, mountain
in South Carolina, fifty miles away.
To the southwest, dim in that blue
haze which gives to this mountain its
name, was the Georgia line, ninety
miles away. To the east, standing
bare and bleak, and rejecting the
suns rays from its snow-crowned
summit, was Mount Mitchell, the
highest peak east of the Rocky Noun
tains.
Renodeled Mountain.
George Vanderbilt looked again
and watched the sun come UP over
the peaks of the Blue Ridge Noun
tains until it seemed to set the whole
dome of the sky on fire, coloring
every cloud to bright copper hue,
and kindling the heavens with long
shafts of golden light. His bewildered
eyes took in this brilliant scene, and,
when he had had his fill of it, he can
celed the order for his private car
and began to look around for home
site.
He first came upon the estate of
a wealthy Southerner and offered
to buy it. The Southerner refused al!
offers. Then Vanderbilt searched the
countryside until the found the site
he wanted and began to negotiate for
the land. Some he got for five hum
dred dollars an acre; other tracts
cost him much more, for, when it was
learned that Vanderbilt was buying
prices went sky high.
In the centre of his holdings was
high mountain. The peak OF this
earthly pile was not intended to hold
the kind of building George wanted.
So he set about correcting the error
of Nature. He sliced off the top and
added the earth and rock of the re-
moved portion to that which was left,
making a broad plateau. On this
plateau he built Bilmore house.
And what ''house" it was! To say
that it cost more than two million
dollars and contained ninety rooms,
gives only a sketchy outline of it. 1t
was-and is-the finest country man
sion in all America, a paradise in the
mountains, Chateau of the Sky