Innovation & Technology

While Biltmore House resembles a French Renaissance château from the outside, it was built using modern methods and technologies. Explosives used to level the house site, for example, were commercially unavailable before the 1860s. The movement of heavy materials on a massive scale provided a daunting challenge before modern construction machinery. This challenge was met by wooden derricks rigged with pulleys and hand-cranked winches, similar to how motorized cranes work today.

Perhaps the most impressive innovation at the construction site was the standard gauge rail lines running from Biltmore Village’s freight depot to the Esplanade of Biltmore House. This rail line crossed uneven mountain terrain with deep gullies and ridges, all while gradually climbing to higher ground. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted proposed a series of terraces supporting trestles that would carry the train across valleys by artificially leveling the landscape without impacting the forest below. Train cars on a separate narrow gauge rail line carried raw materials over the flatter terrain from the on-site quarry to the brickworks.