If you’re planning to spend Christmas in Asheville NC, experiencing the Biltmore Estate Christmas is a bucket list item that proves well worth the pricy investment (2024 tickets range from $125 to $400+).
The 8,000-acre estate is the largest privately owned home in the USA. With 250 rooms encompassing 135,000+ sq feet (+75 acres of gorgeous gardens), the Biltmore House Christmas is the biggest holiday celebration in North Carolina!
November and December find it stuffed with gorgeous Christmas decorations, including 50+ decorated Biltmore Christmas trees, all of which are sourced from local farms.
We’ve visited twice in the last 3 years and thoroughly enjoyed both daytime and candlelit nighttime Christmas tours of the Biltmore House, which range from self-guided audio tours to expert-guided group tours.
All Biltmore House Christmas tickets include free parking, access to the Biltmore Gardens & Grounds, a visit to Antler Hill Village, and a complimentary wine tasting at the Antler Hill Winery.
Whichever tour you choose, be sure you stick around to watch the sunset at Biltmore, when the luminaries and Christmas trees on the lawn make the Estate look even more magical!
Read on for our guide to visiting the Biltmore Estate at Christmas, including dozens of fabulous photos from their 2021 and 2022 celebrations!
READ MORE: The 20 Best Places to Celebrate Christmas in NC
Top Places to Stay Near Asheville NC
The Inn On Biltmore Estate (Biltmore hotel & spa w/casual & fine dining restaurants)
Hampton Inn & Suites Biltmore Village (Pet-friendly, budget-friendly w/free breakfast)
Cambria Hotel (Downtown Asheville hotel with fridge & restaurant, highly recommended)
Kimpton – Hotel Arras, IHG (4-star Downtown Asheville hotel w/breakfast & bikes)
Black Walnut B&B Inn (Romantic B&B in the Montford Historic District)
Engadine Inn & Cabins (Victorian Inn & 6 cabins, 15 minutes from the city)
Biltmore Christmas in Asheville NC Guide
- Biltmore House Christmas Decorations
- Winter Garden
- Billiard Room
- Banquet Hall
- The Banquet Hall’s Biltmore Christmas Tree
- Breakfast Room
- Morning Salon & Music Room
- Tapestry Gallery
- Library
- Living Hall
- George Vanderbilt’s Bedroom
- Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Bedroom
- The Louis XV Suite
- Biltmore House Bowling Alley & Pool
- Biltmore Gingerbread House
- Conservatory
- Antler Hill Village
READ MORE: 18 Festive Ways to Celebrate an Asheville NC Christmas
Biltmore Estate Christmas Info
ADDRESS: 1 Lodge St, Asheville NC
PHONE: (800) 411-3812
DATES: November 2, 2024-January 5, 2025
HOURS: Biltmore opens daily at 12 PM, but hours vary based on demand. Note that during the period of post-Helene recovery, hours of operation will vary at estate shops, restaurants, and other locations.
PARKING: Accessible parking for Biltmore House with complimentary accessible shuttle transportation is available in Park & Ride Lot E.
Park & Walk Lot B-1, is also accessible, with a 5- to 10-minute walk on paved surfaces to the front of Biltmore House. All Biltmore Estate shuttles are accessible to wheelchair and stroller users.
To ensure you arrive prior to your reserved entry time, please allow at least 45 minutes to travel between estate locations and park your vehicle.
DRIVING DIRECTIONS
Due to rapidly changing info regarding road closures and alternate routes in and around the Asheville area, it’s best to consult DriveNC.gov for updated directions to Biltmore Estate.
READ MORE: The 15 Best Hotels in Asheville NC to Visit
Biltmore House Christmas Decorations
The Biltmore House Christmas decorations follow a different theme every year.
In 2021, it was inspired by “Christmas Carols,” while the 2022 decor theme was “Winter Landscapes,” in homage to the 200th birthday of Biltmore’s famed landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted.
This year, Floral Manager Lizzie Whitcher encouraged a team of 17 designers to allow each room’s furniture and decor to speak to them, “giving a fresh voice to what makes individual areas of Biltmore House so distinctive.”
Here are some fascinating facts and stats about the 2024 Biltmore Christmas celebration:
• This year marks 129 years since George Vanderbilt first opened his home to friends and family in 1895, and the 40th anniversary of Biltmore’s beloved Candlelight Christmas Evenings celebrations.
• There will be 58 decorated Christmas trees inside Biltmore House, including a 35-foot-tall Fraser fir in the Banquet Hall and a 55-foot-tall Norway spruce encircled by 36 illuminated evergreens on the Front Lawn for Candlelight Christmas Evenings.
• You’ll find 45,000 lights & 282 candles inside Biltmore House, with another 850,000 lights shimmering around the estate. Some 87,000 lights illuminate the Front Lawn, plus 400 luminaries on the Esplanade .
• The tree in the Biltmore Banquet Hall features 500 ornaments & 500 LED Edison bulb-style electric lights. There are 13,870 ornaments used on the other trees inside Biltmore House, with thousands more sprinkled all around the estate.
• This year’s celebration also features some 9,510 yards of ribbon (mostly in the form of hand-tied bows, 238 fresh handmade wreaths & sprays, 1,960 traditional poinsettias, and 4,265 other seasonal plants, including amaryllises, Christmas cacti, bromeliads, orchids, peace lilies, cyclamen, begonias, and kalanchoes.
READ MORE: The 15 Best Places to See Christmas Lights in North Carolina
Biltmore Estate Rooms- 1st Floor
Winter Garden
Our photo tour of the Biltmore House Christmas begins on the ground floor, where the principal rooms of the house are located.
Immediately to your right as you enter the Entrance Hall, the sunken Winter Garden is an octagonal atrium surrounded by stone archways, with a stunning ceiling featuring architecturally sculptured wood and multifaceted glass.
At its center is a marble and bronze fountain sculpture by Karl Bitter, while the walls just outside the Winter Garden showcase copies of the Parthenon frieze.
This area is where an array of choirs perform, and it’s especially beautiful during the Candlelight Christmas Evenings.
READ MORE: The 10 Best Christmas Parades in North Carolina
Billiard Room
Located to the rear of the Winter Garden, the Billiard Room is part of the Bachelors’ Wing, with secret hidden door panels on either side of the fireplace that led to private quarters (where female guests and staff members were not allowed).
This room is one of the darkest in the Biltmore House, with an ornamental plaster ceiling, rich oak paneling, and both a custom-made pool table and a carom table (without pockets).
The Christmas lights and ornaments from the tree and other holiday decor add a splash of festive color to the Wing, which also includes the Smoking Room and George Vanderbilt’s Gun Room.
READ MORE: The 12 Best Boone NC Christmas Tree Farms
Banquet Hall
The Banquet Hall is easily the largest room in the Biltmore House, measuring 42 ft wide and 72 ft long, with a 70-foot high barrel-vaulted ceiling.
At its center is a massive table that can seat up to 64 guests, with ornate chairs, candles, and poinsettias.
It’s surrounded by rare Flemish tapestries on one wall, a triple fireplace flanked by Christmas trees and garlands, and an elaborate organ gallery that houses a 1916 Skinner pipe organ.
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The Banquet Hall’s Biltmore Christmas Tree
Our favorite feature of the Banquet Hall is a 35-foot tall Fraser Fir harvested in Newland NC, which is located near Banner Elk and Blowing Rock and is home to numerous Christmas tree farms.
The official Biltmore Christmas tree is so large, it typically takes some 50 employees working together to carry the tree into the Biltmore House and hoist it into place!
This spectacular tree is traditionally trimmed with approximately 500 gift boxes, 500 ornaments, and 500 LED Edison bulb-style electric lights.
READ MORE: The 28 Best NC Christmas Tree Farms to Visit
Breakfast Room
Always decorated with fresh seasonal flowers, the Breakfast Room is where the Vanderbilts would come together for their morning meal.
Look up and take notice of the remarkable artistic details on the ceiling. Also worthy of note is original artwork by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and John Singer Sargent.
There are two of Renoir’s portraits, “Young Algerian Girl” and “Child With an Orange.”
If you look just below “Child With an Orange,” you’ll notice a doorknob to a concealed door, which was designed to blend into the wall seamlessly, hiding an entrance through which servants would bring hot meals.
READ MORE: Visiting Asheville’s Southern Highland Craft Guild Folk Art Center
Morning Salon & Music Room
Neither the Morning Salon nor Music Room were finished during George Vanderbilt’s lifetime. But the Biltmore’s Museum Services team has preserved them with decor designed to reflect the “Gilded Age.”
The Music Room was completed and opened to the public in 1976, showcasing a mantel (designed by Biltmore architect Richard M. Hunt) that had been stored in the estate’s stable for 80 years.
It also features a print of of a large engraving by Albrecht Dürer called the Triumphal Arch, which was originally commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.
The Morning Salon was updated just a few years ago with period-appropriate drapes, which underscores the room’s refined elegance and provides UV protection for several priceless works by Claude Monet.
Left unfinished with bare brick walls, the Music Room was not completed and opened to the public until 1976.
It showcases a mantel designed by Hunt, and a print of the large engraving by Albrecht Dürer called the Triumphal Arch, commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I.
READ MORE: The 25 Best North Carolina Music Festivals
Tapestry Gallery
The 90-ft-long Tapestry Gallery is the longest room in Biltmore House, and it’s a place I could stay and soak in (a.k.a. photograph) the gorgeous artistic details for hours.
This room is divided into thirds by fireplaces with painted limestone overmantels.
Each section is devoted to one of 3 intricately detailed tapestries (woven from wool and silk in Flanders in 1525-1535), which George Vanderbilt acquired from an original set known as “The Triumph of the Seven Virtues.”
In between the breathtaking tapestries you’ll find gorgeously decorated Christmas trees festooned with antique ornaments, presents, and other seasonal decor, with the crackling fires casting a warm glow on the scene.
READ MORE: 30 Fun Facts About Appalachian Scots-Irish History & Culture
Library
The Tapestry Gallery leads directly into the 2-story Library, which is arguably our favorite room in the Biltmore House.
This room contains some 10,000 books (on everything from art & architecture to gardening & history) in 8 different languages, reflecting George Vanderbilt’s diverse array of worldly interests.
You’ll be dazzled by the insane Baroque detailing, the ornate spiral staircase, the rich walnut paneling, and the ceiling painting by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, “The Chariot of Aurora,” which is considered his masterpiece.
Of course, the room’s Christmas decor is nothing to sneeze at either, complementing the lush red furniture with vivid red bows, garlands, and poinsettias.
READ MORE: 30 Fun Facts About North Carolina State History & Culture
Biltmore Estate Rooms (2nd Floor)
Living Hall
You can reach the second story by climbing 107 steps of the cantilevered Grand Staircase, which spiral around a 4-story chandelier that’s festooned with stylish holiday decor.
At the top you’ll enter the Living Hall, which was restored to its original configuration in 2013 and served as a formal hall and portrait gallery.
Here you can see large-scale paintings of Biltmore architect Richard Morris Hunt and landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, both of which Vanderbilt commissioned from renowned portrait artist John Singer Sargent.
There wasn’t a lot of Christmas decor here, aside from two trees surrounded by antique toys and lavishly wrapped gifts. But they did have live music (violin) here during our last visit.
READ MORE: 15 Fun Things to Do in Asheville NC in Winter
George Vanderbilt’s Bedroom
From there the Biltmore House tour moves into the south tower, where you’ll enter George Vanderbilt’s gilded bedroom, with incredible furniture design by Richard Hunt.
If you’re ever wondered how a turn-of-the-20th century millionaire might live, this posh bedroom suite suggests “lavish” would be the appropriate adjective.
The deep red sofa, chair cushions, and curtains perfectly complement the Christmas decor, with a warm glow from the period lighting and a roaring fire in the massive fireplace.
This room leads visitors through a Jacobean carved oak paneled sitting room with an intricate ceiling…
READ MORE: 20 Awesome Things to Do for Winter in North Carolina
Mrs. Vanderbilt’s Bedroom
… and directly into Edith Vanderbilt’s adjoining bedroom. It was originally intended to be for George’s mother, Maria (as George & Edith were not married yet), but she died 3 months before it was ready.
This lavish suite is decorated in a feminine Louis XV style, and French-inspired interiors were all the rage at the dawn of the 20th century.
It includes yellow and purple silk curtains and valances, chairs, and a chaise longue in figured velvet, plus a dressing table and a gilt cheval glass mirror. It must have reminded Edith of her childhood in France.
As with George’s room, Edith’s west-facing suite takes advantage of lovely natural light, with gorgeous views of the Blue Ridge Mountains all around the estate.
READ MORE: The 10 Best Things to Do in Asheville for Couples
The Louis XV Suite
One of the most recent (and most extensive) Biltmore House restoration projects, the Louis XV Suite consists of four gorgeous guest rooms: the Damask Room, Claude Room, Tyrolean Chimney Room, and Louis XV Room.
The Damask Room was named for its silk damask draperies and damask-style wallpaper (a reproduction of the original design), and offers views of the South Terrace, Italian Garden, and Deer Park.
Inspired by French painter Claude Lorrain, the Claude Room features several prints of 17th-century landscape paintings by one of George Vanderbilt’s favorite artists. There’s also an ivory inlaid commode from Italy and an Italian Baroque-style desk.
My personal favorite was the Tyrolean Chimney Room, because the tin-glazed earthenware tiles (hand-painted with exquisite floral) of the overmantel recall stoves used in central and northern European castles from the Middle Ages.
Arguably the grandest of 33 guest rooms in the Biltmore House, the Louis XV Room incorporates rococo design elements common in French interiors during the king’s reign, including rounded forms, C-shaped curves, and light carving of shells and other natural elements.
READ MORE: 10 Reasons to Ride the Bryson City Polar Express Train for Christmas
Basement
The basement level of the Biltmore House featured the least Christmas decor, but the largest basement in the USA was still fascinating to explore.
Much of it was devoted to fitness, including a 2-lane bowling alley, a 70,000-gallon indoor heated swimming pool with underwater lighting, and a gymnasium whose exercise equipment was state-of-the-art for Vanderbilt’s time.
This level also features the main kitchen, a pastry kitchen, a rotisserie kitchen, massive walk-in refrigerators that provided an early form of mechanical refrigeration, the servants’ dining hall, laundry rooms, and additional bedrooms for staff.
It’s also where you’ll find the dramatically impressive gingerbread reconstruction of the Biltmore House.
READ MORE: The 20 Best Romantic Getaways in NC (Hotels, Inns & Resorts)
Biltmore Gingerbread House
As impressive as the Grove Park Inn’s National Gingerbread House Competition is, nothing we’ve seen in our two years of visiting it could compare with the size and scope of the Biltmore’s holiday gingerbread house.
This art-meets-architecture behemoth measures 78½” wide x 32” deep x 32” high (including spires), and took 1,200 hours over the course of 5 months to build. But the most interesting fact is that it’s not really gingerbread!
There was a time when the Biltmore pastry chefs crafted genuine gingerbread replicas of “America’s Largest Home.” But it proved too time- (and space-) consuming to make, and extremely difficult to move.
So now it’s created by Applied Imagination, whose artists specialize in handcrafting remarkably detailed architectural models, sculptures, and garden railways out of natural materials.
READ MORE: The 7 Best Train Rides for Christmas in the Blue Ridge Mountains
Biltmore Conservatory
Although not technically part of the Biltmore House Christmas tour, the Biltmore Conservatory is included with your ticket and is truly a must-visit for anyone who loves a beautiful botanical garden as much as we do.
Located in the Walled Garden, the glass-enclosed building reflects George Vanderbilt’s passion for horticulture: He founded the Cradle of Forestry in America, and donated around 500,000 acres of the land that became Pisgah National Forest.
The Conservatory shelters rare, exotic, and tropical plants from all around the world, and feels like a warm tropical getaway at any time of year.
But it’s an especially welcome escape from the cold of Winter, with tons of poinsettias grown on-property providing a splash of Christmas among the orchids, palms, and other exotic plants.
READ MORE: The 15 Best Pisgah National Forest Waterfalls to Explore
Antler Hill Village
A visit to Antler Hill Village does require a drive from the Biltmore House parking lot, but it’s included in the cost of your Biltmore Christmas admission.
The Village offers lots of fun things to do all year round, from restaurants, shopping, and historical exhibits to a Farmyard and an Outdoor Adventure Center. But it’s also a great place to simply relax and enjoy the magic of Christmas.
The Antler Hill Village Illumination celebration runs from 5:30PM to midnight daily through January 6, 2025, offering lots of great selfie spots and sounds of the holiday season.
There are also complimentary wine tastings at the award-winning Biltmore Winery, and Santa himself holds court at the Village Bandstand from 1 to 5PM on select dates in November & December. –by Bret Love; all photos by Bret Love & Mary Gabbett unless otherwise noted
