Liberal Arts Blog — Castles, Palaces, and Manor Houses (III): Mt. Vernon (Virginia), Monticello (Virginia), Biltmore (North Carolina)
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Today’s Topic — Castles, Palaces, and Manor Houses (III): Mt. Vernon (Virginia), Monticello (Virginia), Biltmore (North Carolina)
One particular that stands out in my memory from my college years is a slide show presented by historian Bernard Bailyn in his American colonial history course. Two highlights of the show were how British male aristocrats (eg. Lord Bute) would show off their calves and how their American counter-parts (eg. George Washington) emulated them. Bailyn then proceeded with scarcely suppressed glee to compare the homes of the American versus the British elites. On the one hand, Blenheim, the home of Lord Marlborough. On the other hand, Mt. Vernon, home of George Washington. Blenheim square footage: 1,459,000 square feet (775 rooms). Mt. Vernon: 11,000 square feet (21 rooms), Washington’s home may have been 10X bigger than that of the average Virginian in his day, but it was not remotely on the same scale as the palaces of Europe. Today, a brief look at three of America’s most visited estates. Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
MT. VERNON — the vista, the dimensions of the dining room, the slave quarters
1. To me, the most stunningly beautiful aspect of the Mt. Vernon estate is the view of the Potomac river. This alone is worth the trip.
2. The most memorable thing about the house itself was the modest dimension of the rooms in general and the dining room in particular.
3. The slave quarters were the most unforgettable part of the grounds.
NB: The estate was as much the headquarters of a primitive industrial-agricultural conglomerate as a private home, complete with scientific research laboratories. It is often forgotten that Washington was something of a tycoon as well as a President and General. He experimented with 60 crops, operated a fishing fleet, and constructed the new nation’s largest distillery.
MONTICELLO — a Palladian villa, reminiscent of Chiswick House in London
1. The contrast between the Mt. Vernon residence and Monticello could not be more stark. Though about the same size the feel is completely different. Washington’s home has the feel of a large American farm house. Jefferson’s that of a Roman villa.
2. The rotunda of Monticello captures this best.
3. “Monticello’s large central hall and aligned windows were designed to allow a cooling air-current to pass through the house, and the octagonal cupola draws hot air up and out.”
NB: The perfect home for a “Renaissance Man” — incarnating the aesthetics of the Roman architect Vitruvius (80–15BC) as practiced by the Italian Andrea Palladio (1508–1580) and brought to England by William Kent (1685–1748), designer of Chiswick House in London.
THE BILTMORE (1895) — one of many Vanderbilt estates
1. The descendants of the shipping and railroad magnate Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794–1877) were really, really into big houses. Their extravagance epitomized the Gilded Age of the 1870s to 1890s and the concept of “conspicuous consumption” developed by the American economist Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929)
2. Designed by Richard Morris Hunt (1827–1895), Biltmore is the grandest with 178,926 square feet of floor space, making it the largest private residence in the US.
3. Others include The Breakers and Marble House both in Newport, Rhode Island and the Vanderbilt Mansion on Fischer Island in Florida.
NB: The largest house ever built in New York City was the Cornelius Vanderbilt II House built at the corner of 5th Avenue and 57th Street in 1883. It was demolished in 1926 to make way for a Bergdorf Goodman department store. But its gate has been preserved — at the entrance to Central Park at 105th Street.
https://www.tatler.com/article/from-devil-to-duke-jamie-blandford
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