|
|
||
|
Carriage House A visitor to Biltmore Estate while it was still George Vanderbilt's private home would have arrived in a horse-drawn carriage. during his or her stay, the horses would be cared for (well cared for!) in the carriage house across a brick courtyard on the north side of the house. In addition to the gleaming white tiles and heavy iron hardware, the design team found massive wooden doors and rough-sawn woodwork, now worn, scraped, and downright ragged from years of equestrian coming-and-goings. This rustic beauty was the inspiration for this collection of hand-scraped solid wood floors. |
Conservatory Plank Based upon the care and attention that he put into the room, it's been speculated that George Vanderbilt's favorite place in his home might well have been the library. His vast collection of priceless leather-bound editions lines two levels of high shelves under a frescoed ceiling brought from an Italian palace. And across from a spectacular black marble fireplace stands the massive, hand-carved book rack designed by his friend and architect, Richard Morris Hunt. The richly textured wood bears beautiful chiseled evidence of the woodcarving skill that went into it's creation, and was an immediate first choice as an inspiration for a family of individually hand-scraped engineered planks. |
Restoration Plank
While the furniture and woodwork throughout the Biltmore House came from around the globe and across the centuries, much of it shares a common warm richness and deep, lustrous color palette. Was this an intentional choice on Mr. Vanderbilt's part, or merely a reflection of the inherent beauty these priceless objects share? Who can say. But from the dressing table in his own luxurious bedroom to a torchere in the entrance hall, the glowing colors that radiate throughout the house were an obvious inspiration for a collection of hand-stained, hand-rubbed, wide-plank engineered floors. |
|
Olmsted Forest Plank Already world-renowned as the landscape architect of New York City's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted was an obvious choice for Vanderbilt to take charge of designing gardens, grounds, and forests that surround Biltmore Estate Olmstead took devastated, eroded farmland and barren, treeless hills and turned them into lush, well-managed showplaces that reflected a completely natural, unstudied appearance. The forests that enfold Biltmore Estate today-as well as the weathered outbuildings that housed the animals and equipment that maintained them-inspired a rustic suite of distressed, rustic engineered planks. |
Manor House Of course, not everyone who enjoyed Biltmore's grand ballrooms and marble staircases was lucky enough to have been Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt's guest. Keeping a 175,000 sq. ft. house running smoothly required the efforts of dozens and dozens of workers--cooks, housemaids, engineers, mechanics, stable hands...right down to scullery maids. And all of them needed a place to live, sleep, eat, and socialize. So the upper and lower floors of Biltmore House are full of kitchens, living quarters, common area and work rooms for Biltmore Estate staff. And the woodwork and furnishings of these simple, well-designed, comfortable spaces made a natural inspiration for a group of authentically distressed engineered planks. |
|
