Biltmore Estate, Asheville (must see)

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 (16,622.8 m2) of floor space (135,280 square feet of living area). Still owned by George Vanderbilt's descendants, it remains one of the most prominent examples of Gilded Age mansions.

In the 1880s, at the height of the Gilded Age, George Washington Vanderbilt II began to make regular visits with his mother, Maria Louisa Kissam Vanderbilt, to the Asheville area. He loved the scenery and climate so much that he decided to build his own summer house in the area, which he called his "little mountain escape".

In March 1930 at the request of the City of Asheville, Biltmore Estate was open to public in an attempt to attract tourism to the region. Today the estate is operated as a historic house museum. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963 and emains a major tourist attraction in Western North Carolina, with 1.4 million visitors each year.