page_title: Biltmore Estate
section_title: First floor
hierarchical_section_title: Biltmore Estate / Interiors / First floor
context_page_description: Biltmore Estate is a historic house museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House, the main residence, is a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States, at 178,926 square feet of floor space. Still owned by George Vanderbilt's descendants, it remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded Age mansions.
context_section_description: Biltmore has four acres of floor space and 250 rooms in the house, including 35 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as an electric Otis elevator, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms, and a call bell system. The principal rooms of the house are located on the ground floor. To the right of the marbled Entrance Hall, the octagonal sunken Winter Garden is surrounded by stone archways with a ceiling of architecturally sculptured wood and multifaceted glass. The centerpiece is a marble and bronze fountain sculpture titled Boy Stealing Geese, created by Karl Bitter. On the walls just outside the Winter Garden are copies of the Parthenon frieze. The Banquet Hall is the largest room in the house, measuring 42 by 72 feet (13 m × 22 m), with a 70-foot-high (21 m) barrel-vaulted ceiling. The table could seat 64 guests and is surrounded by rare Flemish tapestries and a triple fireplace that spans one end of the hall. On the opposite end of the hall is an organ gallery that houses a 1916 Skinner pipe organ. Left unfinished with bare brick walls, the Music Room was not completed and opened to the public until 1976. It showcases a mantle designed by Hunt, and a print of the large engraving by Albrecht Dürer called the Triumphal Arch, commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. The mantle had been stored in the stable for over 80 years.
  To the left of the entrance hall is the 90-foot-long (27 m) Tapestry Gallery, which leads to the Library, featuring three 16th-century tapestries representing The Triumph of Virtue Over Vice. Elsewhere on the walls are family portraits by John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini and James Whistler. The two-story Library contains over 10,000 volumes in eight languages, reflecting George Vanderbilt's broad interests in classic literature as well as works on art, history, architecture, and gardening. The second-floor balcony is accessed by an ornate walnut spiral staircase. The Baroque detailing of the room is enhanced by the rich walnut paneling and the ceiling painting, The Chariot of Aurora, brought to Biltmore by Vanderbilt from the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, Italy. The painting by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini is the most important work by the artist still in existence.
caption: A print of the Triumphal Arch hangs above a mantle at Biltmore
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