About:
Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Estate Became an American Icon by Howard E. Covington Jr. is the story of the famous Vanderbilt abode in North Carolina. Mr. Covington is a historian, journalist, specializing in North Carlina.
My rating for Lady on the Hill - 3
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More books by Howard E. Covington Jr.*
Thoughts:
This is one of those books you either buy at the gift-shop of the place you're visiting, or, like us, buy it beforehand because you want to know more about what you're going to see. My wife wanted to go see the Biltmore Estate for a long-time, and we finally carved out a week for an anniversary road-trip.
The book goes a bit into the history of the Biltmore Estate, George Washington Vanderbilt's vision. However it is more focused on his grandson William A. V. Cecil, the only Vanderbilt, it seems, without banking running in his veins.
This estate is massive, it took an army of people build it, and now it takes an army of people to maintain it. While the book does talk about the building of the estate, which G. W. Vanderbilt saw as a self-sustaining one, it's more focused on Mr. Cecil's success into making it a thriving business.
Frankly, the fact that the Biltmore Estate is still around, and thriving, is a testament to Mr. Cecil's genius, tenacity, and business savvy. The book talks a lot about preservation, and equates the estate to Mt. Vernon, Monticello, and Colonial Williamsburg. We've been to all of them so we know what they were saying, but it is more in the context running a business of preservation than anything else. We could certainly see the relationship in that context.
Lady on the Hill by Howard E. Covington Jr. is concerned with those aspects, as oppose to a room by room run of the house or a biography of the Vanderbilts. It was a good book to have before the trip, as it gave us context on the estate, the mansion itself, and some of the rooms and artifacts we were going to see. Overall, it enhanced our enjoyment of the visit.
Buy Lady on the Hill from Amazon.com*
More books by Howard E. Covington Jr.*
