palallin posted:You had to become an employee in order to volunteer? Wow. That's dedication.
Ha! They actually do pay us and better than minimum wage plus we get some nice perks. I can go to the grounds anytime and take a guest. There's good fishing in the rear along the French Broad River. A guest would need a ticket however to go through the house itself. If you've never been, it's worth the price of admission to see it and what they accomplished in the late 1900s. The house itself covers 4 acres - that's 175,000 sq feet. Just the house. The largest private home in America. I enjoy reading and viewing the old photos taken during construction in the basement. Hard to imagine how they built structures like this at the time.
They have interesting exhibits during the year. Recently was one on the Titanic as the Vanderbilts were scheduled to travel on the maiden voyage when they became homesick and departed a short time earlier on another ship. One of their valets however stayed with their luggage on the Titanic and perished.
Presently, there is a vast amount of blown glass artwork by artist Chihuli that is interesting. Reminds me of John Carpenter's remake of the sci-fi classic 'The Thing' with all the tendrils...
We're having some problems in the area with all this rain - as I was driving out last evening the river that is normally quite tranquil and serene is a raging torrent. I spotted this very large snapping turtle that had escaped the fast water and was crawling into a filed. It's shell was about 21"-23" in length and the tail was almost a foot long! That's a LARGE terrapin...
