The Last Castle, The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home by Denise Kiernan. Touchstone, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, 2017. Nonfiction, history.
George Vanderbilt, one of THE Vanderbilts, was a scholar. His health was not good. He and his mother decided to seek out a milder climate than the winters of New York and Newport and Bar Harbor. When George Vanderbilt saw Pisgah Forest near Asheville, North Carolina, it was really love at first sight. Over the years, George built the largest American private home in the country. He traveled extensively and filled it with treasures. He found love with and married Edith Dresser who also loved the area and worked hard to become not just a privileged benefactor, but part of the community. After George's death, it was up to Edith to ensure that the house and grounds would endure for their daughter Cornelia's inheritance and for later generations.
Kiernan has written a masterful, interesting, and detailed history of the Biltmore Estate and its people. The same architect. Richard Morris Hunt, and landscape designer, Frederick Law Olmsted, who worked on other more famous American landmarks helped with Biltmore. Famous artists and celebrities of the times are more than name dropped. If this book doesn't have readers getting out their maps of North Carolina and googling Biltmore for future trips, I'd be surprised.
