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Show FINEST PALACE IN THE WORLD Young (ieorge Vanderbllt's Aim Ills Estate Es-tate In North Carolina. It is interesting to learn that an American gentleman, for, the lack of better employment, has set himself the task of constructing the most magnificent magnifi-cent house, to bo surrounded by tho most beautiful landscape and park effects in all the world, barring no palace, mansion, castle, royal or ducal county seat whatsoever. Everyone to his taste! To plan, perchance to achieve such a triumph as this is at least as rational an undertaking as to strive to own a horse that will trot a mile in two seconds less time than Maud S., or the fastest yacht afloat, or more miles of railway than any other man living. But it is a whim that very few could afford to gratify, and our readers may be prepared to hoar that the gontleman who has taken this extensive contract is at least a Vandor-bilt Vandor-bilt Mr. George W. Vanderbilt The site of Mr. Vanderbilt's chateau or castle lies three miles from the little lit-tle station of Biltmore on the Western North Carolina railroad, two milos east of Asheville. A small manufacturing manufactur-ing and industrial community has sprung up at Biltmore solely on account of the Vanderbilt chateau. It is estimated that this great country coun-try seat will require ton years for completion com-pletion and an expenditure of 8 or 10 millions of dollars. The whole scheme is a hopeless riddle to the unsophisticated unsophisti-cated natives In the vicinity; but they are not disposed to quarrel with the whim or question the sanity of a man who sees fit to furnish an army of laboring men with employment for a term of years in tthis manner. When it is finished, although money cannot buy some of the historical associations and other accessories which give many of the old world piles their chief distinction, dis-tinction, it is possible that the place will indeed be so rare and fine a thing in its way as to give "the House that Vanderbilt" real artistic distinction of its own an honorable and world-wido fame. We cannot help regarding it as a hopeful sign when Croesus begins to feel an impulse to try to do something or make something that shall excel anything of the kind yet accomplished, if it is only a noble house set in an ideal landscape. |