When Mrs. ITF and I were on our honeymoon, we took one day and visited the Biltmore Estate. We had both wanted to see the place, and we really weren’t that far away, so we made the extra drive down there.

This place is nothing short of astounding!

At 175,000 sqare feet, it’s the largest privately owned home in the United States.b

I didn’t get a decent picture, so I stole this one from the wikipedia site.

I thought about this a lot while we were there. I’m all for raging capitalism and prosperity, but I can’t imagine people spending such a staggering amount of money on themselves. It’s unreal.

Here’s Jewel sitting on the back porch.
Pictures aren’t allowed inside, but nobody was around so I took this. It’s looking up the middle of the servant’s staircase, I think it was.
One end of the mansion.

I love tourist attractions like this. We had a great time.

Overlooking part of the massive garden.

The grounds were enormous also. There was a huge garden, greenhouses, a lake, and who-knows-what else.

These last two pictures I took where the arrows indicate. We were walking down the hall upstairs and I quickly and stealthily whipped out the camera for the shot below.