Blog #9 The Builtmore Estate

I grew up in a historically restored home, this was not a pleasant experience for me as a child, but because of my parents desire to live in such a home, I was dragged during my younger years to many a different historical home in order to “experience” the way people “once lived in finer times”. Whatever that means. I remember best being dragged all the way to North Carolina once to see the majestic Biltmore estate house, a massive estate that covers more than 8,000 acres and is still owned by the Vanderbilt family. It is a huge, running, self sustaining estate that allows people to visit , volunteer and experience life as any fabulously rich person in 1895 might have wanted to. It sports a year round team of curators, gardeners and staff dedicated to running the estate as it always has been since it’s building. Now, This is an estate that although massive, imposing and beautiful, it is also useful. I harp in the course over and over about the need to consider the use of a place for preservation purposes. Although it is a great means of generating revenue, it also preserves artisan and craftsmen wonders, a vintage car collection (all running and restored might I add!) as well as acres of land that is carefully tended and protected.

This estate preserves a lifestyle, a landscape and a way of life that is all too close to being lost in America. I believe that the use of this estate far outweighs the drag, over-indulgence and pompous nature I feel for it, perhaps because of my resentment of my own upbringing. The benefit it gives to arts, technology education and philanthropy is beyond something like a preserved home in Chicago, not open to the public, could ever hope to have, so despite my resentment, the place of such a museum is important and necessary to ourselves as preservationists and students of history.