moment around march of 2018 with a little 3-year-old parker curry caught gazing in awe at mrs. obama. later on when she was asked what did you see, parker? she said, i thought she was a queen. >> travel with us to historic sites, museums and archives each sunday at 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern on our weekly series, american artifacts. this is american history tv, all weekend on c-span3. welcome to biltmore in asheville, north carolina. we are in america's largest home and it's going to be my pleasure to welcome you and tour you through the house. it's really a wonderful place to visit and just a beautiful estate with an incredibly expansive home. this is a home with more than 33 bedrooms for guests and family,

65 fireplaces, an incredible massive staircase. just architectural beauty surrounding a home. welcome to biltmore estate in asheville, north carolina. it's my pleasure to tour you through the house. we'll go ahead and head in. this house was constructed over a period of six years starting in the late 1880s and finished in 1895. george vanderbilt, who was the owner of the home, the owner and builder of the home, really envisioned this as a getaway for his family and friends and opened it to his guests on christmas eve of 1895. so george washington vanderbilt was the youngest son of william henry vanderbilt and the grandson of commodore vanderb t vanderbilt. so this was an incredible family that had been building railroads and shipping industries in new york and across the world. he was really interested in intellectual pursuits. he was a book collector, a print collector, a friend to artists and writers and really a

collector of arts and beautiful objec objects. george washington vanderbilt came to the asheville area in the late 1880s. his mother was suffering from malaria and there were many pulmonary doctors in this area so he was accompanying his mother down here for her treatments. he fell in love with the landscapes and the sweeping views and began to assemble an estate. began to acquire land with this vision of creating a house and gardens and then a grand state around it. so you wouldn't think for a house this size and in this scale that a bachelor would have built that. so when george first began building biltmore it was just he himself and his trustee dog, cedric, and they created this grand estate. it was really for friends and for family and to get away. it was his primary home, though he traveled quite a bit. he fell in love soon thereafter and welcomed his bride. they were married in paris. had a four-month honeymoon and

came back to biltmore in 1898 and ever since then it has been a family home. so it's a really interesting story. when hunti and george vanderbil started working together, they had a vision for a very small house. something tucked away into the mountains. as their vision grew, the house literally grew. they traveled in france and in england visiting grand chateaus and great country estates and took components from each of those. i think they got excited about the idea and the possibilities and the vision for the house grew and grew and eventually it grew into this, the largest home in america. so the house from the exterior is very much an american expression of the french renaissance. so it has these grand sweeping views, of course, but framed by the architecture itself. the deep roof lines and quite a bit of drama, but most of the architecture is adapted from the french renaissance. so we are in the entry hall of

biltmore. it's really the heart of the home. you come through these very beautiful large oak doors. you're struck by the size of the estate and also the quality of the workmanship. there's beautiful marble, limestone. the construction of the house is really exquisite. the entry hall is really the center of this home. it's flanked by the winter garden, which is a beautiful glassed-in space that brings sunlight into the home all year rounding. off of these spaces radiate the library, which is one of the guests' favorite rooms, a music room, a salon, the breakfast room and all sorts of spaces for entertaining. so next we're going to proceed from the entry hall into the banquet hall. this is a space where the vanderbilt its and their guests dienld every night at 8:00. it was a formal affair. ladies in their evening gowns, gentlemen dressed in white tie and the table would be set beautifully with crystal and china and all that we still have

in our collection. so the vanderbilts, this was their main home. they were here most of the year. they did travel. they had a home in paris as well, one in washington, d.c., one in bar harbor, maine. biltmore was their main home. so many, many politicians came here and they would dine at this table. it was really a scene of intellectual interest and exchange. so i can only imagine the conversations that were held at this table. so if you were a guest at a party, a large party, you'd be seated at a large table. if it was just the vanderbilts and a few friends, you would be snuggled up against these beautiful fireplaces at a small table, which is what we're showing this evening. it's a three-bay fireplace, literally almost a walk-in fireplace if you will. just incredible scale that lights the room and provides heat for the room as well. so throughout the house there's remarkable carving. much of it done by carl bitter, who was a protege of the

architect. carl bitter was an immigrant from austria that found his way working in these grand houses. he also worked on the facade of the metropolitan museum. he did two scenes. george vanderbilt was a great fan of opera and you see many expressions of that throughout the architecture in the house. this is a space patterned after these grand reception rooms. and i think one of the most remarkable things is the ceiling above us. it's a beautiful evaluated wooden ceiling that really just takes your breath away. only in this room do we have a three-bay fireplace but a ceiling that soars almost seven stories high. surrounding that as well are not only animal trophies but also other sculptures by carl bitter and these beautiful leaded glass windows. as i mentioned, george was a bachelor when he built the house but soon welcomed his future

bride and edith was the heart of the estate. she was very close to the estate workers and served as hostess to the house. not only to guests but also across the entire estate. we have many, many stories, particularly in this room, adorable stories of ways that she and he supported workers across the estate, including one of a little girl whose mother was playing in the loft above us and she slipped in through the butler's legs, came over to mrs. vanderbilt and asked for a little bite of food off of her plate. rather than being angry that this little girl had interrupted their dinner party, she fed her a little bite and sent her on her way. the little girl told us how much she thought her mother must have died watching that entire scene but it really gives you an idea of how beloved they were by estate workers and how much the house was a home. you can have little girls wandering through the kitchens and up the stairs and wanting to catch a glimpse of the ladies and gentlemen dining at biltmore

house. in 1900 the vanderbilts welcomed cornelia vanderbilt, their daughter, here. they had only one child but she really grew up with the entire estate as her playground. so we are leaving the banquet hall and passing the breakfast room and on our way to the music room. one thing that's really interesting and very unexpected is that the music room and the salon next to it were actually not finished during vanderbilts time here at biltmore. they were finished much later, almost 80 years later. these spaces were used sometimes for parties but mostly they were just cordoned off with velvet curtains. so we are in the music room at biltmore house and this space remained unfinished until about 1976. it was finished by a former owner who passed away unfortunately just this past year. this was really a space that he created. the space was always supposed to be a music room. it was listed on plans as a music room. but for a mysterious reason it was unfinished.

then mr. cecil hired experts and finished the space to the way you see it now in 1976. i think one of the most interesting things about this, though, despite so many fascinating things happening during george vanderbilt's time, this room really housed one of biltmore's great mysteries. not only did we not know why it wasn't funni ifinished, but it an important role in american history. just weeks after pearl harbor was bombed, the national gallery sent much of its art to biltmore house for safe keeping. edith was friends with the national gallery's first director and he visited biltmore in 1925 and learned about how the house was isolated and in this beautiful area and that it was built to be fire safe and it registered to him. during the '40s when much of europe was being bombed and so much amazing art was being lost,

he felt that the national gallery's collection was at risk as well. so he contacted mrs. vanderbilt and asked if he might send 72 pieces of art to biltmore house for safe keeping. they were loaded up in steel crates in the middle of a snowstorm in the middle of a night and sent down by a railroad and housed in this room. biltmore at that point was open as a museum as much as it is today and guests were walking past this space with curtains and steel fire doors at the doors and the arches and having no idea that great works by recommembrandt rembrandt, all of the great works of the national gallery were here. even the thing of george washington as well. so they weren't at risk in the way that they thought so it was about a year when they were housed in this room and guests were walking past and there were guards on duty and even dogs on

duty, but guests were walking past and had no idea. then in 1943 the estate closed to guests because of a lack of manpower. so many people were involved in the war and also because of rations with gasoline. so the artwork hung here on racks, safe and tucked away, for another year, year and a half or so, and then was sent back i believe in 1944. mrs. vanderbilt didn't charge the gallery for that. we have a beautiful letter saying that it was really -- that it was part of her american duty, part of her patriotic duty to house and keep this art safe at biltmore. so it's interesting to think why these spaces may not have been finished. many people say perhaps because of financial reasons. i'm not sure that's the case because there are so many other spaces that are finished with incredibly carved woodwork, beautiful french walnut, exquisite metal work. i don't think if finances had been the deciding factor that

those other spaces would have been finished so finely. i suspect it was very common that rooms like this would have been outfitted with panelling sourced from abroad from other grand homes that were being dismantled. and mr. vanderbilt was very particular and his architect was very particular so i imagine that they were waiting to find just the right space to outfit with antique wood panelling and they never quite came across it. also the architect, mr. hunt, passed away during the final stages of construction. so i imagine that they had grand plans for this room and never got quite to it. so we have left the music room and we're walking through the tapestry gallery at biltmore. it's based on many of the long galleries in england in the great country houses. this space is more than 90 feet long, one of the more expansive spaces in the house, and decorated with exquisite tapestries from the 1830s. these are some of the few of a set that really tells of the

virtues of man. so these are charity and prudence and this is a really special space because it was one of the least formal spaces of the house. this is where the vanderbilts would have greeted their guests, where afternoon tea would have been held each day. we know that cornelia vanderbilt, their daughter, and any visiting children would come down for tea. during certain times of the year we like to populate this space with costumes to show what that would have looked like as well. it's really a special space. it also opens up and has these exquisite views of the mountains and vanderbilts' estate beyond. you can imagine the breezes in the space and how much they would have enjoyed sitting in here with guests in the afternoon. another feature in this room are some of the paintings. we have many, many paintings in this collection. we've passed the portrait of edith vanderbilt that was done by a family friend, whistler. we have two john singer sergeants in this space, one above the library doors of

george vanderbilt himself. one on the left of his mother that he commissioned and a beautiful portrait of edith vanderbilt which hangs on the right of the doors. then we're going to go into one of the favorite spaces of the house of our guests, the library. as i mentioned, george vanderbilt was very interested in collecting books, and so this space of course was created to showcase part of his collection. there are about 10,300 books in the room surrounding us, but that's less than half of his collection. we have more than 22,000 volumes that george vanderbilt collected still in the collection today. george vanderbilt was reading from a very young age and very interested in the idea of collecting and connoisseurship. even at the age of 12 he began keeping a journal of the books he had read, which he kept his entire life until his death at age 51. he had read 3,159 books during his lifetime. they really spanned interests so he was reading a lot of contemporary literature, both

american, english, also french literature, but he was fascinated with history, fascinated with art, with horticulture. we had one of the strongest libraries of horticulture. very interested in architecture. and our collection really spans all of these topics. they're also bound, custom bound for him and it's just magical to be in a space like this. his love of books so clearly comes through. so the room is architecturally very interesting. it's panelled with this beautiful french walnut. some of these have some concealed elements in them where maps and rolled documents could have been tucked away, but i think most often what are the secret passages in biltmore house. we don't have an underground system of huge tunnels or anything like that. but guests who are staying in certain suites had an area that would connect to a staircase and it would come down through an unexpected passage way behind

the mantlepiece and then out the door up above us on the second level. then they were able to pop down easily from their room, grab a volume that piqued their interest and go back to their space without disturbing anyone. not only did george vanderbilt host henry james and edith wharton but prestigious guests as well, one of those being president and mrs. obama who came during the early part of his presidency. they came to asheville to really enjoy the mountains and the food here and the golf and everything that asheville has to offer but they spent a lot of time with us here in the house. the current day family toured them around. when they came to the library, they were struck because, of course, president obama and mrs. obama are both lovers of books. but president obama was particularly transfixed by a globe that we have in our collection that's a very rare globe dating from 1899. he was very interested in examining the areas particularly

in the middle east and looking at the boundaries that were in place at the turn of the century and just getting kind of the broader world view. he spent a lot of time explaining how the structures that are seen on the globe at that time really impact our world situation today. i think coming to biltmore gives you an entirely different perspective on america in the 19th century. it gives you insight into this incredibly fascinating family, the vanderbilts, who were key to the growth of america, but also insight into one family, a family who loved books, who loved this calm, beautiful area, who did a lot to enhance the understanding of scientific farming and forestry in america at that time. you just get this glimpse into another time that doesn't exist anywhere else. it's a really unique place in america. >> our guests here on the estate when they first arrive, they're going to feel a couple of things. one is they're going to see a

certain landscape and a layout that doesn't look like what they left, whether they're at the hotel or in their cities. so it has a very specific feel to it. here at biltmore, we strive as hard as we can that the guests today would experience the same design intent that vanderbilt and olmstead and hunt laid out in the 1890s. so a guest would come onto the estate, they would come up the approach road. there's three miles of winding road and there were wonderful letters back and forth between olmstead and vanderbilt and all the gentlemen involved at the time on what the guests would experience. and olmstead had this wonderful letter to george vanderbilt saying the guests would come up the approach road, there wouldn't be any long-range views. they would open to the

artificial court viewing the house. then the guests would walk through the house and would come out on the lozia or the windows viewing the west side and that view, which is the first view that vanderbilt saw before he even purchased any of the property, that view would be the culmination of that experience. i think it's very -- it's interesting. that was done in the 1890s. even today in this decade, a president, mr. obama and his wife and some friends visited the estate on vacation. they came up the approach road and they suddenly came to the house and saw everything about it. and then walked through the house and were standing on the lozia and looking out and president obama said, now this is why we came. back in the 1880s, george vanderbilt came and saw this wonderful view in western north carolina, and he saw this view

of mt. pizga and the french broad river valley and it captivated him. so he started purchasing this land and built this home here on the property for him and his guests. the estate at one time with all the forestry lands had grown to 125,000 acres. we're presently right at 8,000 acres. we're standing in the middle of a four-acre walled garden which is an english garden set here in western north carolina. it's just one part of the larger gardens, what was historically and we still call the home grounds. so it's the gardens associated with the biltmore house. much of the land that vanderbilt was purchasing and looking at at the time because of its proximity to asheville and lived-in areas at the time, much of the land had been overforested, had been burned

over, cut over. people had taken everything from firewood to saw logs off of it. people farmed on this land, and it was not rich farmland at that time. so the land was not nearly as pretty as we see it now. so a lot of vanderbilts and frederick olmstead, their plan was to rehabilitate the land and make it that hospitality-based location for george vanderbilt's family and friends. olmstead was probably what we call the first landscape architect. mr. olmstead didn't care for that term, landscape architect. what he looked at was this big picture. he had done everything from central park in new york city, he had done prospect park in brooklyn. he had a vision that could span huge acreage, and also that

ability to see what that -- what he called the picturesque, that pretty little vignette would look like. so a man of great vision. and he sort of started landscape architecture in the united states. so frederick olmstead had worked with george vanderbilt in the past and worked with the vanderbilt family a number of times in the past. he was the preeminent person to have an estate like this laid out. he was also at the end of his career. i think that means he didn't have anything left to prove. he could bring in all of his experiences and leave his ego out of it a little bit and paint this really broad beautiful picture that included forestry, which is a significant thing that many of our guests don't really see consciously. they see the beautiful backdrops, wonderful rolling hills, forested hills. it didn't look like that when olmstead began. he saw that that was an

important part of it. it was also very important that the country learn that you could have a scientifically managed forest. they had been doing it for centuries in europe, but it wasn't the practice here. so he helped bring that together with george vanderbilt. so as olmstead and vanderbilt were working out the bigger estate, and they both understood that scientifically managed forests were going to be a really important part of the estate. they had to find somebody who could make this happen. and the first person they brought in as the first manager, the first forester was gifford penshow and we remember him from the national forest service. he was the first leader of what was to become the national forest service. but he started his career here at biltmore. it was that eye to what's it going to look like in 20 years, what's it going to look like in 50 years. that's a refrain we still use at

the estate today. as director of horticulture here, i have one very important job, and that is to maintain the design intent that was historically for the estate. whether it's along the approach road, whether it's here in this walled garden, in the azalea garden, the shrub garden, the water gardens and the italian garden. all of those things had very specific goals that the guests would experience. it all comes down to that original design and the people that we have making it all come together. that's what makes biltmore. >> c-span was in memphis, tennessee, earlier this year for coverage of events commemorating the 50th anniversary of martin luther king jr.'s assassination on april 4th, 1968. next, a ceremony remembering what's known as reverend king's

mountain top speech given at the mason temple the night before he was killed. speakers include two of his children, bernice king and martin luther king iii as well as andrew young who was with reverend king at the time of his shooting. the church of god in christ and the american federation of state, county and municipal employees co-hosted this event. sisters and brothers, the church of god in christ welcome you to the i am 2018 mountain top commemoration with a special musical performance by judith mcallister and the south wind high school choir. ♪