Biltmore Upstairs Downstairs Tour ⬆️ Biltmore Estate Behind the Scenes Tour Asheville North Carolina

I want to welcome you to my channel I'm Danielle from our roaming hearts and today we're going to talk about one of the behind-the-scenes tours I did at the Biltmore Estate so while I was there at the Moore State I was there at Christmastime and I did a video on my Christmas tour and you can see that in the link above there but I also did the downstairs upstairs I think it's actually called the upstairs downstairs tour it's kind of a look behind the scenes of what the servants of the house would have seen that the guests and the Vanderbilts really would not have and this is also many rooms and most of the information and stories you will hear were not included in the main tours so as you start your tour one of the first things you see is the still working Otis Elevator and this was used when the servants had to bring massive amounts of items up and down the stairs and then you head into the butler's pantry this is where all the meals were coordinated this is where they do a good part of the talking about the servant life such as to be a servant in the house and to be part of the help in the house you had to be single the females lived in the house itself in the basement unless you were a lady's maid then you had a room kind of close to miss Vanderbilt's room and then the gentleman the single gentleman lived in the rooms above the stables now if you were married and you worked on the property you would have a job somewhere else in the property whether it was the farming the winery landscape whatever and then you had a house at Biltmore village across from what is now the main estate it's a shopping area now a little bit of information on the house that they gave here there are 65 fireplaces in the house 43 bedrooms there's a hundred and one rooms I believe they said because of the fireplaces it would take three men chopping wood all day they would need 220 cords of wood for the winter at a minimum so this is just some of the information that they would give the Otis Elevator that you saw was from the t95 it was the first in the southeast USA one of two over this elevators still in working condition today the kids of the Vanderbilt still privately owned the house it is the largest privately owned home in the country now as you can see here in the butler's pantry it's a two story area they have some of the famous China some of the stuff was only used once for one event and really hadn't been used again they also have the book that was shared between mr. Vanderbilt and his chef his chef would write down the menu based on what they had the guests that were coming the events that it was and then mr. Vanderbilt will go in with a pencil and cross things out he would make notes he would make changes as you can see there and it was all kept poor record right there they have a little refrigerator there it was not a typical icebox they talked about the technology used for the refrigerator itself they had a dumbwaiter there between the kitchen they had one of the male servants coats the butler's coats there on display they showed you out and there's a little hallway between the butler's pantry and the dining room that had the basically the call box for the house it would any room that called for one of the servants would show up here my picture got blurred out I was trying to take a picture as I move so I don't have a good picture of that you do get a back view of the dining room as you head out to you get to see outside here those little black holes there in the bricks those are the coal drop that they would bring the coal delivery in and they would go in there that helped fuel the house they talked about how Frederick Law Olmstead was the designer he's the same guy that did the landscaping for Central Park and he did the landscaping here as well as you see in this picture there is the off the left there there's that little glass room it almost looks like a little sunroom that is what is known as the bachelors wing well after Vanderbilt passed on the expenses of the house we're pretty expensive to keep up as I'm sure you know so to save on expenses and heating bill Edith and her daughter moved into this part of the house and basically closed off the rest of the house so they weren't having to maintain and heat that part of the house after her daughter got married they opened it up again during the Great Depression they closed it but then they brought it back to life and open it up as museum and did tours and started to break tourism into the area and they talk about all that while they're showing you this area here from there you head back inside and you get to see he Scalia I believe it was called a seamstress room they have on display one of the traveling it's like a traveling closet basically that one of the guests would bring with their clothes there and this room is where the seamstress would be where they would do all the mending because do they made all their clothes so if there happens to be a rip or tear it got mended and you continue using and they said that they would change clothes three to four times a day they had an outfit for every activity you know you would not wear the same clothes that you wore at breakfast for dinner because dinner was considered a very formal event so you can see here on the table some of the garment the mannequin there is wearing a traditional outfit is not one of the outfits that Edith Vanderbilt would have worn but it's a traditional outfit from that day and it is in her size and you can't really tell but she's really short I'm 5 foot 2 and she would have been just a little shorter than me from the looks of it I wasn't able to get to up close and you can see this is like a traveling outfit that they would wear from there you head into one of the servants rooms this is a ladies maid room immediately right after the sewing room there this is where the ladies made to mrs. Vanderbilt would stay and it's very basic room they had a fireplace for heating in the bed and a wash station everything they would need and the reason that the lady's maid stayed here is because there was a staircase in her room that led right into mrs. Vanderbilt closet and we got to walk through her closet which is not in the regular tours and she had just rows of all of her stuff she had her own bathroom as you can see here also the bathroom is not shown in the main tours they show a traditional like nightgown that she would have worn her table and everything that the ladies made would help her with and then you can see the doorway into her bedroom from the closet in the bathroom area and the bedroom is on the main tour and you can see this is just the back shot of the closet there and everything that would have been good in and then they take you into a room that has not yet been restored to kind of show you what they have to go through you could see the peeling wallpaper you can see that there is also several different types of wallpaper this was the housekeeper's room they talked about the housekeeper she was paid $300 a month plus her room and board and that was what she had worked up to she had been there for quite a long time I believe they said nineteen years before she retired she saved up all her money she made $300 a month plus they gave her room and board so she really didn't have to spend a lot of money so she was able to save a lot of it and when she retired she moved to Florida and bought an orange grove and turned it into a bed and breakfast her name is mrs. King and this is what would have been her room at the time and now they also take you into a couple of guest rooms that are not on the main tour this one was kind of set up to show you how they would have liked the dressing room the dress and the ladies maid would be there to help them get dressed because these gowns were absolutely extravagant and I keep saying the word extravagant but it's true it's a very extravagant lifestyle that they had and you can see here's another guest room that they showed someone some more kind of acid oude guest room but just as much very much for the guests there and they were very good at showing a lot of the clothes that they would wear for the den they explain what each outfit would have been used for and this was Cecilia's room their daughter's room it was also at one point I believe used as a like a wrap being like a packed present wrapping room so you see here they have all sorts of information on their daughter and this room is not on the normal tour as well I'm not sure why being in such a family member's room they had information on her they have photographs from her wedding they have one of her outfits on display there they have all the information from her wedding everything there they have pictures of costume parties that they would do and all sorts of information on how she met her husband and their courtship and all that in there and then they have this little guest wrapping station in there and they would talk about how mrs. Vanderbilt knew every one of the servants on the property and she knew their families and she knew their kids names and she would throughout the year she would personally buy a toy for every one of the kids of the families that lived helped work on the property and she would wrap them herself and deliver them herself to every one of the families and every one of the kids on the property and she kept a log and they have this as part of the collection where she would write down who she was buying for what she bought that year etc and she just she they cared very much about the people that helped them with the property and then as you exit this tour you exit through some of the more common spaces that you see on the on the tour but this is where you get the beautiful views of the Grand Staircase you start up because you're at the top by the time that you get to the staircase and you can look down and they have beautiful circle candles there they have it all done up with the Christmas lights and then down at the bottom is the tree and the trees in the center and the staircase kind of wraps around and is just done up and it is absolutely beautiful I think I took like 20 pictures of just this area because it was just so beautiful on its own and then they leave you there right it's basically at the entranceway you can start your guide that you could start your audio tour from there or you can go out and have lunch and come back and do your tour if you of the house however you want to do it and like I said I did a tour of the house itself and I will leave a link to that video in the comments below if you've done any of the other tours they offer several other behind-the-scenes tours I would love to hear about it in the comments below I always love to hear about the other tours that they offer um so leave those in the comments below if you liked this video please give me a like comment share share it with family and subscribe and hit the little bell icon so you get notifications of my new videos I have lots of them coming out a crop from different locations across the United States and also check out some of the videos listed on your screen here I know you'll love them and I can't wait to connect and talk with you again soon

Channel: The Courage To Travel

Views: 152,365

Rating: 4.8681893 out of 5

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Id: S-mJZGb6Oh8

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 28 2019