Historic Biltmore Estate Office
Updated: April 2019
Setting the Style of the Village
The Historic Biltmore Estate Office was one of only four structures that had been designed by Richard Morris Hunt (1827-1895), the architect of Biltmore Estate. The Estate Office was one of the first buildings constructed in Biltmore Village and was completed in 1895.
Pebble-dash surfaces, half-timbering, brick trim and chamfered and bracketed porch posts were some of the materials and design motifs that set the architectural tone for all the subsequent buildings constructed during the Vanderbilt-era until George Vanderbilt’s death in 1914.
The Historic Biltmore Estate Office served as the office for the operations of the Vanderbilt estate.
Historic Biltmore Village
Architecture
The nomination papers for the National Register of Historic Places describe the building as follows: “The one-and-one-half story building rests on a coursed ashlar foundation. Window surrounds feature brick flat arches and patterns reminiscent of quoins, a suggestion found at the corners of the building. Above the molded cornice rises a hipped roof pierced by oversized, multi-bay, half-timbered, hipped-roof dormers. A short flight of steps leads to a recessed porch stretching the width of the building and a handsomely paneled and molded entrance with three-light transom.” In the rear of the building was a porte cochère, which was a covered carriage entrance, for visitors arriving by horse-drawn carriage. The porte cochère was later converted into a small firehouse garage.
Richard Hunt architected only three other structures in Biltmore Village of which The Cathedral of All Souls was one of his most significant designs. The other two buildings were Parish House and the Historic Southern Railway Depot.
Biltmore Plaza, Asheville, NC 28803
All day.
All year.
STREET VIEWING ONLY.
Free street parking.
Public bus stop: Lodge Street at Biltmore Ave.
Stop Gray Line Historic Trolley: 5 Boston Way (at the store Olde World Christmas Shoppe)