Since I wrote about the Biltmore House several days ago, I got in the mail a postcard showing the other house George Vanderbilt had built here in western North Carolina. There is a huge difference between the two, but both houses reflected the lifestyle of this very rich man. 

This is Buck Springs Lodge, the hunting camp house:

It was built in 1895, a few years after Biltmore House was completed.  By that time Vanderbilt had acquired all the land between the house and Mount Pisgah, which was about 17 miles away!  There was no road between Biltmore House and the mountain, only a rough hourse trail (which is now the Shut-in Trail, and is popular with hikers).  So the Vanderbilts build a road in order to get supplies up to the building site.

This was no rustic camp house.  In contrast to the homes of the people living in the area, the lodge had hot and cold running water, and electricity provided by a generator.  There was a large staff of servants and cooks, and while guests were taken hunting and hiking, they also dressed for dinner and enjoyed the lifestyle to which they were accustomed.

George Vanderbilt died in 1914 and 2 years later much of the land was sold by his widow to the Federal government for the creation of Pisgah National Forest.  She did keep Buck Springs Lodge and about 450 acres around it, and as she aged she spent more and more time there.  When she died in the late 50s, the house and land were sold to the government, and the lodge was torn down by the Park Service.

Today, if you start at the Pisgah Inn and take the trail to Mount Pisgah, you go right past the site.  There is little there to remind you that once the members of one of America's wealthiest families came here to get away from it all.