If you’re visiting North Carolina, it’s almost obligatory to stop by Asheville, the trendy little city tucked into the Blue Ridge Mountains. I’m not a fan of “trendy” but I thought Asheville was certainly worth a look. The setting is beautiful, but Asheville itself was a mild disappointment. Downtown seemed a little dim and run down to me. (I’m used to the clean, bright and tree-lined streets of downtown Fort Worth, which experienced a makeover back in the 80’s due to the leadership of the Bass family, bless their rich little hearts.)
Still, it seems a nice place, if you’re into Haight-Ashbury retro. I passed on the bars and art shops, but I did visit the locale’s main attraction, paying $50 for the privilege. (You read that right. Fifty. Bucks. Me!) If you’ve watched Lowe’s paint commercials on TV, you may have some idea of what I’m talking about—the “largest home in America"—the unique, magnificent and incredibly ostentatious Biltmore House.
The property consists of more than 8,000 acres (it boosts, among other things, its own herd of cows, its own herd of sheep and its own vineyards and winery) in an area where, even when it was first built, flat land was at a premium. You enter through a magnificent arched gate and drive perhaps a half-mile to the place where you buy your ticket, then approximately two miles more through the Biltmore Forest before you even reach the house.
That drive alone is almost worth the price of the ticket. Huge old trees, smooth-turfed glades, tiny streams, little stone bridges...it was magical. I kept expecting to see a unicorn drinking at one of the brooks, or see Frodo and Sam walking through one of the sun-dappled clearings. If you ever go, (and I suggest going in the spring) roll down your windows so you can listen to the birdsong. The only thing needed to make it pure bliss would have been making that drive in an elegant two-horse phaeton instead of a car. (You can take a carriage ride through the property, but I had neither the time nor the money to spare.)
At the end of the drive are parking lots surrounded by trees and flowers. Park, walk a hundred yards , pass through a high iron gate and there are the wide paved drives that lead to this immense house. For some reason, I’d imagined the front of Biltmore House surrounded by landscaping, but the huge stretch of emerald turf flanked by broad driveways is even more impressive. I couldn’t help but imagine a dozen carriages going down those drives when the house was first built, and a generation later, top-of-the-line Pontiacs and Packards making the same trip.
Biltmore House from the outside is a rather endearing mix of Victorian and Gothic, from the beautiful glass roof of the Conservatory to the gargoyles perched a various places on the roof, their heads cocked as though they are peering down at the tourists. The huge marble entry is flanked on the left by a magnificent marble staircase, four floors high, and on the right by the circular, sunken Conservatory, a sort of indoor garden filled with huge potted plants. From there you start the tour of the “public” rooms (much of the house is still being restored.) Everything is huge, magnificent and a bit overwhelming. I’m not going to describe every room in detail, but just to give you an idea of this house (which was built for a family of three—George Vanderbilt, his wife and their daughter Cornelia)—I’ll describe the dining room.
It’s like something out of a 18th century German prince’s castle. Nearly 40 feet high, the walls are hung with huge 15th century tapestries and boost an upper border consisting of nineteen stuffed stags heads, plus one rather lonely-looking moose. The marble fireplace, equally tall, has three openings, each large enough to roast a whole boar. High over the entry door are two life-size marble knights in full armor and the table itself is big enough to serve as a dance floor. Thirty people can sit at it without the slightest crowding, though cross table conversation might be difficult, since I estimated it to be at least ten feet wide.
The other rooms—the billiard room, the tapestry room, the generous bedrooms, (one each for both Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt, since it was considered a bit bourgeois for married folk of that class to actually sleep in the same bed) the dozen or so guest rooms, the basement’s indoor bowling alley and swimming pool, the huge kitchens and laundry rooms, the tiny servants’ rooms –were all part of the tour. You climb up and down a bewildering array of staircases and go through so many passages and halls that only by peering through the occasional outside window can you keep your bearings.
The mention of those windows brings me to the point of this post. I, and judging from their comments, a lot of the other visitors, noticed that many of the rooms were dark. I mean gloomy. Even with all the desk and table lamps and candelabras switched on, they were full of shadows, especially in the interior rooms of the house. “Not much natural light,” was the frequent comment.
And the beds, for all their velvet-hung magnificence, were small. Even the beds of Mr. Vanderbilt and his wife looked to be no larger than a full, while the single beds in some of the guests bedrooms were hardly wider than cots. I found myself wondering how comfortable the mattresses might be compared to modern versions. Mrs. Vanderbilt’s bedroom was a lovely combination of gilt and plum, but it was also a bit dim, with the same gorgeously-draped, but small bed. The basement swimming pool, which had no windows at all, had underwater lights, but even with those lit, it still felt like you were trapped in a cave.
No central heating either (although almost every room had a fireplace) or air conditioning. I found myself wondering how comfortable the house would be in a hot North Carolina summer or a chilly mountain night. In an era where most house maids slept two or three to a bed in an unheated attic, the servant’s rooms we saw were very small but pleasant, with narrow individual beds covered with white spreads and even a small table and chair each—but I couldn’t help notice that each also came with a chamber pot. (I was told by one of the docents that there was a bathroom at that level, but people preferred using chamber pots because it got so cold at night.)
So—cold in the winter, hot in the summer, small beds, rooms so dark you couldn’t see details of the magnificent tapestries on the walls….
My point?
Most of us, even those of modest means, live much more comfortable lives than the super rich of even 100 years ago, and infinitely better than kings and queens who lived 1000 years ago. No, we don’t wear (and sweat or shiver in) silks and velvets, but we can buy, for modest prices, light, comfortable, colorful clothes that are easy to wash, light, comfortable footwear and very light and comfortable outerwear to keep us warm. Our beds may not be draped in scarlet hangings, but ours are bigger, our mattresses less lumpy, our blankets both lighter and warmer, our sheets softer and smoother.
Most of us don’t huddle next to fireplaces trying to keep warm or sweat through the heat of a summer. We may not have original art by the finest painters of the day, but we can buy beautiful prints at low prices that, if we don’t pine over what we can’t have, give us just as much visual pleasure. We can pick up a phone and hear our loved ones voices almost instantly, and we travel, not in carriages, but in smoothly moving, air conditioned vehicles. We don’t have to go to a concert hall to listen to a symphony, we can carry our own orchestras in our pockets for $20. We don’t have to go to a theater to see drama, we just have to press a button on a remote.
In short, we should appreciate those material comforts we have and do a little less pining after those we don’t. I think it was Andrew Tobias who once pointed out that although Bill Gates can afford to pay 1000 times more than you or I for a mattress, it’s doubtful he’ll experience 1000 times the comfort. And is a $150 meal at a trendy restaurant really ten times better than a $15 meal at a great barbecue place? Does your happiness really depend on driving, a car with all the latest bells and whistles, or should you appreciate a car that’s simply reliable and comfortable?
And here’s the kicker. We should really compare ourselves with the people of the Biltmore House who weren’t rich: the servants, the grooms, the gardeners and the hundreds of workmen who built it. Compared to the life they led, most of us live in a paradise of comfort and convenience.
Learn to appreciate that. Learn to enjoy it. Count your comforts as well as your blessings. You’ll enjoy life much more if you do.
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