Frederick Law Olmsted & the Approach Road

Frederick Law Olmsted and the Approach Road. . , As you traveled up Biltmore's Approach Road, what did you notice about the landscape? You may be surprised to learn that the winding road, lush vegetation, and trickling streams were all designed as an experience which would affect your subconscious. It was the genius of one man, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, who was hired by Biltmore's owner George Vanderbilt to transform the estate from dilapidated and overworked land to the lush beauty you see now. As you walk along the final stretch of the Approach Road and pass through the gates, notice how Biltmore House "breaks suddenly and fully” upon you as you turn the corner-just as Olmsted described to Vanderbilt in his initial plan. , "I suggest the most striking and pleasing impression of the Estate will be obtained if an approach can be made that shall have throughout a natural and comparatively wild and secluded character... until the visitor passes with an abrupt transition into the enclosure of the trim, level, open, airy, spacious, thoroughly artificial court, and the Residence, with its orderly dependencies, breaks suddenly and fully upon him." -Frederick Law Olmsted to George Vanderbilt, July 12, 1889 , Olmsted 200, Celebrating Parks for All People , For the national celebration of the 200th anniversary of Frederick Law Olmsted's birth in 2022, Biltmore has added a series of informational signs throughout the historic gardens and grounds of the estate to mark Olmsted's work here and honor his significant contributions as the "father of landscape architecture in America." , ( photo caption ) , Members of Biltmore’s landscaping department pause from their work on the Approach Road to be photographed during a site visit from Frederick Law Olmsted and George Vanderbilt (highlighted right foreground).