“The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home”, by Denise Kiernan

 

416 pages, Atria Books, ISBN-13: 978-1476794051

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home by Denise Kiernan is about the designing, building, maintaining and legacy of Biltmore, the largest private home in the United States, by its proprietor, George Washington Vanderbilt. Such as it is, The Last Castle is an interesting look into how the Other Half lives, and we see during the contruction of this megalith how the builder grew right along with his house, as Vanderbilt is educated by those he has hired about new ideas and ways of advancing notions of preservation, forestry, agriculture, farming and the harnessing of the local natural resources. He, and later his bride Edith, become engaged in advancing local arts and crafts as a way of bringing economic growth and opportunity to the people that were now their neighbors.

To tell a complete tale, Kiernan goes on at length about Biltmore even after the death of GW, and you will find that a good deal of the Biltmore story, rightfully, centers on George’s widow Edith and her efforts to make Biltmore profitable once it becomes clear that such Gilded Age castles, of which Biltmore is the supreme example, is of a time past, never to return. Edith guides the house’s transformation into something that will sustain itself and keep it viable as the times change. From Edith the baton passed to her daughter, Cornelia, and from her to Edith’s grandsons, the Cecil brothers, who own the house still. Thus, The Last Castle is a history of more than a great house: it is about a family and a community that all changed to meet the challenges life presented them with.

Kiernan has written about building a monument to a dying era and way of life, and how that monument is transformed into an example of successful evolution. We are informed of George Washington Vanderbilt’s life, a brief history of his family and the source of their wealth and George’s place in that family and way of life. His decision to remove himself and his mother to the wilds of North Carolina to build this enormous edifice in the middle of nowhere is difficult to understand, especially considering the daunting logistical challenges that the project entails (I would certainly have enjoyed reading about how those challenges were met, but while the building of the house and the grounds is discussed, it is not discussed in the detail the title would lead you to believe). I think it is fair to say that this book is not about the building of the house, but about the process of building and the effect on the owner and those around him, and especially on the community in which this structure is sited.

Kiernan did exhaustive research to tell us all about George and Edith Vanderbilt and their daughter, Cornelia. We hear about their travels, their spending (vast amounts) of money, their love affairs, their extended families and everything else you could want in an historical account. One lasting accomplishment of George was that he cared for the thousands of acres of forest surrounding his castle and that he hired fine stewards who nurtured the wilderness back to health and established a school of forestry – the first in the nation – and that the Biltmore Estate is the ancestor of the Pisgah National Forest. We hear about that almost more than we hear about George himself. But I never, ever got a sense of what this house he built must have been like when it was actually occupied; it never became a home in my eyes, just a place to build and show off – then again, perhaps that was all it was meant to be.