by Denise McClugage

Always curious about how the other one half of one percent lives, I like touring stately homes, imagining I'm a guest reading by that crackling fire in a cozy library no larger than my entire house, or waking in a tester bed in a room far down a hallway lined with ancestors posed with croquet mallets or tiny dogs with frilly ears. In my scenarios I'm the one to pull the tapestry rope to bring aproned servants to my beck, not the one that arrives apace from below stairs, but in actual fact I often find below stairs the most fascinating part of these grand residences of another era.

My favorite such home is special for a number of reasons: it is the largest private residence in the country; it still contains most of its original furnishings, not replicas; it is still privately owned by descendants of the family that built it; and it plays most directly into my fantasy of being a guest rather than a tourist. I speak of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, N.C., formally opened on Christmas Eve, 1895. The 250-room mansion filled with art and curios from world travels was built by George Washington Vanderbilt III, he the grandchild of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the "Commodore." His great grandson, William A.V. Cecil jr. is the CEO of the Biltmore Company.
That sense of being a guest instead of a gawking tourist is not unique to me; on a recent visit I heard the same sentiment expressed by others over afternoon tea at the Inn on Biltmore Estate, a 213-room four-star hostelry that seems much more settled in than its 2001 opening would imply. It is, so far, the only lodging actually on the 8000-acre estate.

The welcoming aura is fostered by a relaxed atmosphere and a thoughtful marshalling of traffic so that one never feels regimented or herded even on the busiest days. Well, there is that $40 daily ticket, but think of it as a hostess gift. Then drive through the magnificently designed grounds which are exactly what Mother Nature would have created had she the talents and taste and budget of Frederick Law Olmsted, a landscape architect perhaps even better known for New York's Central Park.

And mark this: the tours through the Biltmore House can be self-guided so you can dawdle in the billiard room, the music room, the tapestry gallery, the fascinating basement. (CONTINUE...)