House & Garden 
M. Hunt was deeply impressed, and the 
earlier phase of it particularly he has trans¬ 
lated for us in Biltmore House with what 
success the reader is left to judge. How 
easily the features ot French royal chateaux 
of the XV. and early XVI. Centuries adapt 
themselves to our North Carolina ot to-day ; 
and whether one may feel the lack at Bilt¬ 
more of such homely atmosphere and 
associations as surround, tor instance, our 
manor houses ot colonial times ; whether the 
great place can ever seem to have grown out 
ot local conditions, as perhaps all good archi¬ 
tecture does, are matters we may leave in- 
dividual taste to determine. 
In dealing with the grounds about the 
house the landscape architect has naturally 
aimed to recall to some extent the manner ot 
garden art belonging to the period it repre¬ 
sents. This was formal, of course, and archi¬ 
tectural, following the fashion of the day in 
Italy, where classical elegancies ot garden 
building were being revived, and where villas 
ot antiquity were being reconstituted from 
forgotten manuscripts. The revived interest 
in garden architecture soon spread into 
France, where the taste for it now began a 
development destined to pass through many 
successive periods, and to produce gardeners 
whose fame was to live in history. In 
his formal gardening at Biltmore Mr. Olm¬ 
sted has not affected a rigid archaism. It is of 
a much later France than the buildings are. 
Nor was he tempted out of the reserve of 
good taste by the magnificence of his oppor¬ 
tunity. Less formality than he has given us 
here was not to be looked for. Though 
broad and quiet in treatment it is altogether 
adequate,—and beyond the immediate set¬ 
ting of the chateau the artist soon lapses con¬ 
tentedly into a freer and more naturalistic 
landscape. 
The illustrations will help toward a com¬ 
prehensive idea of the scheme, of which the 
elements are sufficiently simple. Before the 
house, and of a lateral extension nearly equal 
to it, is 'The Great Quadrangle of lawn framed 
in gravel walks, outside of which are bands of 
turf set with two rows of rigid trees. This 
parvis is limited on either side by a low wall ; 
in the centre is a circular basin. Across the 
drive and up The Ramp a grassed allee, lined 
with trees, ascends a gentle knoll, from which 
a belvedere commands the scene. Under 
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