On September 26, Denise Kiernan’s signs her book THE LAST CASTLE: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation’s Largest Home at Malaprop’s Bookstore (55 Haywood St, Asheville). Kiernan (also the author of The Girls of Atomic City) will be in conversation with New York Times bestselling author Karen Abbott.
Each year, more than 1 million visitors flock to Biltmore Estate, the colossal Gilded Age château built by George Vanderbilt (railroad titan Cornelius Vanderbilt’s grandson) in the Blue Ridge Mountains between the years of 1889-1895. Biltmore is the largest home ever built in America; it occupies 175,000 square feet and is larger than three White Houses. Yet the real story of Biltmore is of the people who lived, worked, and played there, including George Vanderbilt’s wife. Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best-known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt, one of the world’s wealthiest and most elusive bachelors, was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore.
Packed with priceless art, antiques, and an unrivaled library, this opulent fish out of water was improbably set amid the rugged mountains of southern Appalachia. Designed by celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt, with grounds shaped by the legendary landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Biltmore House was surrounded by countless acres of woods that comprised what is now known as America’s Cradle of Foresty. Almost feudal in nature, George and Edith’s domain included a Hunt and Olmsted-designed village outside the estate gates where workers, their families and other locals planted the seeds of what remains a vibrant community. Despite their drastically different circumstances, the Vanderbilts and locals forged a powerful bond that transformed the region in ways that are still felt today.
Encompassing world wars, the Jazz Age, financial crises, scandalous marriages, natural disaster, murder and suicide, the story of Biltmore House takes readers from the wilds of Appalachia to the glamour of New York, Newport and Paris, and features a captivating cast of characters including Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Henry James, John Singer Sargent, and James Whistler.
Advance praise includes:
“With plenty of famous characters sprinkled throughout, there is enough action and history to keep readers engaged and eager to turn the pages… Kiernan fans and those new to her work are sure to devour this latest volume.” —Library Journal
“A soaring and gorgeous American story that gripped me from the very first page. With a historian’s keen insight and a poet’s gift for language, Denise Kiernan depicts life at Biltmore with such skill, I felt like I was there through it all: weddings, divorces, elaborate (and slightly bizarre) balls, financial glory, financial ruin, murder, suicide, natural disasters, betrayals, love, loss, despair, and triumph. The story of George and Edith Vanderbilt’s remarkable lives will stay with me for a long time to come.” —Karen Abbott, New York Times bestselling author of Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy
“Only in the pages of Denise Kiernan’s The Last Castle will they come to know George Vanderbilt, the bookish heir who began Biltmore in his 20s, and his determined widow, Edith, who kept it alive as a working estate and a time capsule of the Gilded Age. In the pages of The Last Castle, Kiernan serves up a true tale of American excess, generosity, and perseverance.” —Bill Dedman, New York Times bestselling author of Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
“This is as much a story about the creation of Biltmore House as it is a window into what it was like to be an American at the turn of the 20th century. Kiernan makes Edith and George Vanderbilt, among the wealthiest Americans at the time, feel like living, breathing human beings navigating life’s obstacles in this magnificent book. And she tells the story of how one fiercely devoted woman was able to save the home her husband loved.” —Kate Andersen Brower, author of First Women: The Grace & Power of America’s Modern First Ladiesand The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House
“The rich have secrets. In her well-researched and captivating book, Denise Kiernan tells the fascinating story of how a phenomenally wealthy Vanderbilt scion transformed a rural North Carolina town by building the ultimate rich man’s folly and reveals the eccentricities, heartaches, and even money problems of these Social Register denizens and their friends and employees.” —Meryl Gordon, author of Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend
“This is a timely and timeless American story of wealth and the responsibility and opportunity it carries. In Kiernan’s hands, this mashup of Downton Abbey-like extravagance set amid the ‘rugged mountain simplicity’ of Appalachia reads like a Southern fairy tale — Brothers Grimm meets Gone with the Wind. A passionately researched family saga of death and divorce, suicide and sickness, fortunes gained and lost, spanning two world wars and set at the crux of the Gilded Age yielding to the modern era, The Last Castle is ultimately a story of fortitude and survival. A stunning and important achievement.” —Neal Thompson, author of A Curious Man: The Strange and Brilliant Life of Robert “Believe It Or Not!” Ripley
