Biltmore Estate
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” [John 14:1-3]
In 1888, George Washington Vanderbilt, 26 years old at the time, visited the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina with his mother. He loved the scenery and climate so much that he decided to build a summer house in the area. However, this would be no ordinary summer house. George’s idea was to replicate the working estates of Europe.
His “summer house,” completed in 1895, contained 250 rooms and was 175,000 square feet. The dining room table alone could seat 64 guests. Intending that the estate be self-supporting, George set up forestry programs, poultry farms, cattle farms, hog farms, and a dairy. The estate included its own village and even a church.
In 1898, while in Paris, George married a young lady by the name of Edith. In 1912, he and Edith booked passage on the Titanic but canceled due to a premonition of Edith’s mother. It was too late, however, for them to get their servant and baggage off the ship; both were lost when the Titanic sank.
George spent more than his annual income for the upkeep of his colossal house, and began to deplete his once-enormous inheritance. Some of the rooms of this house were never fully completed. After his unexpected death in 1912, George’s widow, Edith, sold much of the land around the estate to the United States Forest Service at $5 an acre until only 12,500 acres were left from the original 125,000. In 1963, the estate was designated a National Historic Landmark, and today it is still the largest home in the United States.
Friends, how would you like to live in a mansion? Jesus is preparing the best of living conditions for those who love Him – greater than any home ever built on this earth. We can’t even begin to imagine how beautiful it will be. Best of all, we will be with our Lord, never to be separated. Are you ready? He has a mansion for you.
