Record #:

10773

Author(s):

Not Given

Abstract:

George Washington Vanderbilt II, Richard M. Hunt, Frederick Law Olmstead, and Gifford Pinchot are the four men primarily responsible for the planning, building and landscaping of Biltmore Estate, located near Asheville. Vanderbilt provided the initial inspiration, and most importantly, the financing for the palatial estate in the mountains of North Carolina. To complete his vision, he hired the best architect, landscape gardener, and forester that could be found in the United States. Hunt had worked in France as inspector of expansion construction at the Louvre and the Tuileries in Paris as well as having designed the central part of the Museum of Modern Art and the base for the Statue of Liberty in New York. Olmstead was well known as a travel writer in addition to being regarded as the premier landscape engineer of his time for his work designing Central Park in New York City and the grounds of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Despite being much younger than Hunt or Olmstead, Pinchot was considered the best forester in the country and his work in the developing field of forestry at Biltmore led to future appointments in the Theodore Roosevelt administration as National Forest Commissioner and head of the new National Conservation Association.

Source:

The State (NoCar F 251 S77), Vol. 36 Issue 6, Aug 1968, p10-12, il

Subject(s):

Biltmore Estate (Asheville)--History