Biltmore Estate Conservatory

The Biltmore estate was designed between 1889 and 1895 by architect Richard Morris Hunt and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted for George Washington Vanderbilt II, a grandson of Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt. The conservatory belongs to that programme and was completed in 1895, the year Hunt died. According to the estate, Vanderbilt, Olmsted and Hunt conceived it together after a European tour during which they studied Victorian glasshouses such as the Crystal Palace.

It stands at the lower end of the four-acre Walled Garden, placed so as not to obstruct views from the house. The Conservatory Heritage Society says the greenhouse complex was supplied by Hitchings & Company of New York; the other sources consulted do not name the builder. Chauncey Beadle ran the estate's gardens from 1890 to 1949.

The estate opened to the public in 1930 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1963. The conservatory underwent a major two-year restoration completed in 1997, and its wooden exterior doors were replaced in 2022.

The Conservatory stands at the foot of the Walled Garden, at the end of a central grape-covered arcade. Its heated glass area exceeds 7,000 square feet, about 650 square metres. The central room is the palm room, which rises to forty feet.

Sources do not all describe the layout in the same way. The estate lists the palm room, two annexes (hot and cool), an orchid room, a sitting room, a cactus room, a potting room and a production room, completed by outdoor summer alleyways. Another site mentions six main rooms including an exhibition room. In every account the complex combines spaces at different climates, from the cool annex to the hot one.

The structure is primarily glass, with wooden exterior doors replaced in 2022. The maker Tanglewood Conservatories also says that the roof of one of its models was inspired by the winter garden of the main house, a separate space from this greenhouse.

The Conservatory shows more than two thousand varieties of tropical and exotic plants, according to a specialist site, and operates as a year-round tropical oasis. The orchid room holds more than five hundred orchids, including corsage orchids, lady slipper orchids and the "dancing lady" oncidiums; bloom peaks in winter. Another source mentions over a thousand orchid varieties in the collection, of which forty to fifty are on display each day.

The palm room gathers palms, ferns and foliage plants: queen palm, golden Hawaiian bamboo, giant elephant ears with leaves over a metre long, banana trees. A bromeliad bed carries a "V" for Vanderbilt. The cactus room and hot annex complete the circuit.

The production room is used to propagate plants, and some of the poinsettias used in the house's Christmas decoration are grown there.

The Conservatory lies at the bottom of the walled garden, away from the house: visitors reach it by following the central arcade of the Walled Garden. It is included in estate admission, with no separate ticket. Winter is the season in which its warmth and orchid blooms make the stop most rewarding.

A visit combines with the four-acre Walled Garden, its symmetrical beds and arcade, then with the other gardens shaped by Olmsted, and of course with Hunt's house. The estate also runs seasonal events, notably at Christmas, for which plants grown on site are used in the decoration.