AMERICAN ESTATES AND GARDENS 



one, and most of all to the designers of those times, so here the most beautiful ideas are 

 employed, but employed afresh and in a new way. 



The open stairway at Biltmore recalls, as it was doubtless intended to recall, the great 

 stair at Blois; luit it recalls it only as an octagonal stair lighted by many windows must recall 

 it. One can not get away from the original structure, but the stair at Biltmore is not the 

 less an individual creation, distinctive and modern. And the same may be said of the 

 house as a whole. It resembles a French chateau, since that resemblance was intended. 

 Yet it is familiar in suggestion only, for it is a new and original composition, designed by an 

 American architect for American surroundings. It is a wonderful example of the proper use 

 of historic precedent. 



The house speaks for itself. It is a great house of a great estate, and as such it stands 

 alone among the great houses of America. It expresses that idea ver}^ fully, and, if it expresses 

 it well and artistically, it surely has achieved a very marked success. Nothing has been 

 spared, neither within nor without the house, nor in the large private grounds that stu'round 

 it, that might add to its beauty or make it admirable as a place of residence. 



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