THIS IS AMERICA - Biltmore Estate

THIS IS AMERICA - Biltmore Estate¹
By Jerilyn Watson

Broadcast: Monday, March 21, 2005

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ANNOUNCER²:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. This week, Rich Kleinfeldt and Shirley Griffith are your guides as we take you to the Biltmore Estate. This huge home was built more than a century ago near the mountains of North Carolina.

VOICE ONE:

An estate is a property³, usually large, owned by one person or a family. The man who owned the Biltmore estate in North Carolina was George Vanderbilt. He was born in eighteen-sixty-two and died in nineteen-fourteen. His father and grandfather were two of the richest and most powerful⁴ businessmen in America. They made their money in shipping⁵ and railroads⁶.

 
 
When his father died, George Vanderbilt received millions of dollars. He chose to spend a good deal of that money building his home in North Carolina. More than one-thousand people began the work on it in eighteen-eighty-nine. The structure⁷ was ready six years later in December eighteen-ninety-five. Biltmore is now open to the public. It is well worth a visit. So, close your eyes and imagine you are going there.

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VOICE TWO:

Our car has just turned off one of the main roads in the city of Asheville, North Carolina. We have entered a private road that leads to the main house on the Biltmore Estate. The sides of the road are lined with trees.

When we leave the car, we walk through a wooded area. The air is clean. It smells of flowers. The trees are dark and very large. They block us from seeing anything. At last we come to an open area and turn to the right. The main house is several hundred meters in front of us.

VOICE ONE:

 
 
Biltmore is huge. It looks like a king's palace. It measures two-hundred-thirty-eight meters from side to side. It is the color of milk, with maybe just a little chocolate added⁹ to make it light brown. As we walk closer, it seems to grow bigger and bigger. It has hundreds of windows. Strange stone creatures look down from the top. They seem to be guarding the house.

Two big stone lions guard the front door. Biltmore really has two front doors. The first is made of glass and black iron¹⁰.

We pass through it to a second door. This one is made of rich dark wood. Both doors are several meters high. The opening is big enough for perhaps six people to walk through, side-by-side.

VOICE TWO:

A book has been written about the Biltmore estate. It includes many pictures of the house, other buildings, gardens and the Vanderbilt family. The book says the house has two-hundred-fifty rooms. We cannot see and count them all. Only sixty-five are open to the public.

One room that can be seen looks like a garden. It is alive with flowers. In the center is a statue with water running from it. When we look up, we see the sky through hundreds of windows. Eight big lights hang from the top.

Then we come to a room in which dinner can be served to many guests. The table is large enough for more than sixty people. The top of this room is more than twenty-one meters high. The walls are covered with cloth pictures, flags, and the heads of wild animals.

VOICE ONE:

Each room at Biltmore is more beautiful than the last. Many include paintings by famous artists, like French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir and American artist John Singer Sargent. The chairs, beds, and other furniture were made by artists who worked in wood, leather, glass, marble¹¹, and cloth.

One room was designed for reading. It contains more than twenty-three-thousand books in eight languages. Stairs on the side of the room permit¹² visitors to reach books that are kept near the top. The paintings in this reading room are beautiful, too.

VOICE TWO:

Later, we visit rooms below ground level. The people who worked for the Vanderbilt family lived in this lower⁸ part.

The Vanderbilts employed about eighty people to take care of the house. This included cooks, bakers¹³, and house cleaners. Other workers took care of the many horses the Vanderbilts owned. Many of these workers lived in the main house, but some lived in the nearby town.

One of the biggest rooms below ground level is the kitchen. And there are separate¹⁴ rooms for keeping food fresh and cold, and for washing the Vanderbilt's clothes.

Past these rooms we find an indoor swimming pool. This area has several separate small rooms where guests could change into swimming clothes.

VOICE ONE:

We finally come back to the front door of the house. Yet there is still much to see at the Biltmore estate.

To the left of the front door, about fifty meters away, is where the Vanderbilt family kept its horses. It is no longer used for horses, however. It now has several small stores that sell gifts to visitors. Visitors can also enjoy a meal or buy cold drinks and ice cream.

VOICE TWO:

 
 
In addition to seeing the main house at Biltmore, you can walk through the gardens. Hundreds of different flowers grow there. A big stone and glass building holds young plants before they are placed in the ground outside. Past the gardens is the dark, green forest. Trees seem to grow everywhere. The place seems wild. At the same time, there is a feeling of calm order.

There was once a dairy¹⁵ farm on the Biltmore estate. It is gone now. The milk cows were sold. Some of the land was planted with grapes. And the cow barn¹⁶ was turned into a building for making wine.

VOICE ONE:

As we continue to walk, we come to an unusual house in the forest. The road on which we are walking passes through the house. The house was used many years ago by the gate keeper¹⁷. Visitors traveled from this gate house to the main house. The distance between the two is almost five kilometers. The trees surrounding Biltmore look like a natural forest.

Yet all of the area was planned, built, and planted by the men who designed the estate. None of it is natural.

Now you may have begun to wonder about the history of Biltmore. Who designed it? How did they plan it? How and why was it built?

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

The Biltmore estate was the idea of George Vanderbilt. The buildings were designed by Richard Morris Hunt. Mr. Hunt was one of the most famous building designers¹⁸ of his day. He designed and helped build several other big homes in the United¹⁹ States. Several of them were for other members of the Vanderbilt family. Mr. Hunt also designed the base of the Statue of Liberty²⁰ in New York Harbor²¹.

VOICE ONE:

Another famous man of the time designed the gardens at Biltmore. He was Frederick Law Olmsted. He is most famous for designing central park in New York City and the grounds around the capitol building in Washington²², D.C. One of Mr. Olmsted's first projects at Biltmore was to plant and grow the millions of flowers that would be used for the gardens there.

VOICE TWO:

Another man named Gifford Pinchot was also part of the team that designed Biltmore. While there, he started the first scientifically managed forest in the United States. He cut diseased or dead trees and planted new ones. He improved the growth²³ of many kinds of trees. It is because of his work that the wild forest at Biltmore has an ordered and peaceful look.

Gifford Pinchot left Biltmore to start the school of forestry²⁴ at Yale University. Later he helped to establish the United States Forest Service.

Biltmore is surrounded by more than one-thousand eight-hundred hectares²⁵ of forest. The forest provides a wood crop that helps pay the costs of operating the estate. It was the work begun by Gifford Pinchot that makes this possible.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Today, Biltmore belongs to the grandchildren²⁶ of George Vanderbilt. However, it is no longer used as a private home.

Many years ago, the family decided²⁷ to open it to the public. Visitors help pay the cost of caring for and operating it.

Biltmore employs more than six-hundred-fifty people who work in the house and gardens.

The family says George Vanderbilt liked to have guests at Biltmore. They say he enjoyed showing it to others. Now, each year, about seven-hundred fifty-thousand people visit the Vanderbilt home in Asheville, North Carolina. The family says their grandfather would have liked that.

(MUSIC)

ANNOUNCER:

Our program was written by Paul Thompson and read by Rich Kleinfeldt and Shirley Griffith. I'm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

1 estate   

n.所有地，地产，庄园；住宅区；财产，资产

参考例句：

• My estate lies within a mile.我的地产离那有一英里。
• The great real estate brokers do far more than this.而优秀的房地产经纪人做得可比这多得多。

2 announcer   

n.宣布者；电(视)台播音员，报幕员

参考例句：

• The radio announcer said it was nine o'clock.电台播音员报时9点整。
• The announcer tells the listeners what programme comes next.广播员告诉听众下一个是什么节目。

3 property   

n.财产，所有物，所有权，性质，特性，（小）道具

参考例句：

• He has made over his property to a hospital.他已将财产转交给了一家医院。
• Oil has the property of floating on water.油有浮在水上的特性。

4 powerful   

adj.有力的，有权力的，强大的

参考例句：

• The UN began to get more and more powerful.联合国开始变得越来越强大了。
• Such are the most powerful voices of our times!这些就是我们时代的最有力的声音！

5 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

6 railroads   

n.铁路，铁道( railroad的名词复数 )；铁路系统v.铁路，铁道( railroad的第三人称单数 )；铁路系统

参考例句：

• Water transportation was outmoded by railroads and good pikes. 水上运输已因铁路和良好的税道而变得过时了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• A severe snowstorm blocked up railroads. 一场暴风雪使铁路中断。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 structure   

n.结构，构造，建筑物；v.构成；

参考例句：

• Doctors study the structure of the human body.医生研究人体构造。
• A flower has quite a complicated structure.一朵花的结构相当复杂。

8 lower   

adj.较低的；地位较低的，低等的；低年级的；下游的；vt.放下，降下，放低；减低

参考例句：

• Society is divided into upper,middle and lower classes.社会分为上层、中层和下层阶级。
• This price is his minimum;he refuses to lower it any further.这个价格是他开的最低价，他拒绝再作任何降价。

9 added   

adj.更多的，附加的，额外的

参考例句：

• They have added a new scene at the beginning.在开头他们又增加了一场戏。
• The pop music added to our enjoyment of the film.片中的流行音乐使我们对这部电影更加喜爱。

10 iron   

n.铁，熨斗，坚强，烙铁，镣铐；vt.烫平，熨，用铁包；vi. 烫衣服

参考例句：

• The iron has lost its magnetic force.这块铁已失去了磁力。
• We need an electrician to mend the iron.我们要请电工修理熨斗。

11 marble   

n.大理石，石弹，雕刻品；adj.大理石的，冷酷无情的，坚硬的

参考例句：

• Marble is a precious stone.大理石是一种珍贵的石料。
• The statue was carved out of marble.这尊像是大理石雕成的。

12 permit   

n.许可证，许可，执照；vt.允许，容许；vi.容许

参考例句：

• The doctor will not permit mother up until her leg is better.在母亲的腿好些之前,医生不允许她起床。
• The soldiers had orders to permit no stranger through.士兵们接到命令不许任何陌生人通过。

13 bakers   

n.面包师( baker的名词复数 )；面包店；面包店店主；十三

参考例句：

• The Bakers have invited us out for a meal tonight. 贝克一家今晚请我们到外面去吃饭。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The bakers specialize in catering for large parties. 那些面包师专门负责为大型宴会提供食品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 separate   

n.分开，抽印本；adj.分开的，各自的，单独的；v.分开，隔开，分居

参考例句：

• Are they joined together or separate?它们是合在一起还是分开的？
• Separate the white clothes from the dark clothes before laundering.洗衣前应当把浅色衣服和深色衣服分开。

15 dairy   

n.牛奶场，乳品店；adj.乳制品的

参考例句：

• The yogurt sold by this dairy is delicious.这家乳品店出售的酸奶非常好喝。
• He kept a few dairy cows.他养了几头奶牛。

16 barn   

n.谷仓，饲料仓，牲口棚

参考例句：

• That big building is a barn for keeping the grain.那幢大房子是存放粮食的谷仓。
• The cows were driven into the barn.牛被赶进了牲口棚。

17 keeper   

n.管理人，看守人，看护人，饲养员

参考例句：

• He found a job as a keeper.他找到了一份当饲养员的工作。
• He might lose his job as keeper.他也许会丢掉他当监护人的职位吧。

18 designers   

n.设计师( designer的名词复数 )；图案设计师；打样师；制图员

参考例句：

• Have you seen that article about young fashion designers? 你见到了关于年轻时装设计师的那篇文章没有？
• Every moment of the fashion industry's misery is richly deserved by the designers and magazine poltroons who perpetuate this absurd creation. 时装工业每一个痛苦的时刻都是完全应该被时装设计师们…和那些使这种荒诞创造永久化的杂志懦夫领受。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 united   

adj.和谐的；团结的；联合的，统一的

参考例句：

• The whole nation is closely united.全国人民紧密团结。
• The two men were united by community of interests.共同的利益使两个人结合在一起。

20 liberty   

n.自由，自由权；冒昧行为

参考例句：

• He stood for the cause of liberty and justice.他为自由和正义的事业而奋斗。
• You are at liberty to do as you please.你可以随意行事。

21 harbor   

n.海港，港口；vt.庇护，藏匿；心怀(怨恨等)

参考例句：

• The harbor lies to the south of the city.港口在城市的南边。
• At that time,our ship was tied up at this harbor.当时我们的船停靠在这个港口。

22 Washington   

n.华盛顿特区(是美国首都)

参考例句：

• His birthplace is Washington,but he lives in San Francisco.他出生于华盛顿，但住在旧金山。
• They, together with my father,have gone to Washington.他们和我父亲一起去华盛顿了。

23 growth   

n.生长，栽培

参考例句：

• All living things depend on the sun for their growth.万物靠太阳生长。
• Youth is the time of physical growth.青年时期是长身体的时期。

24 forestry   

n.森林学；林业

参考例句：

• At present, the Chinese forestry is being at a significant transforming period. 当前, 我国的林业正处于一个重大的转折时期。
• Anhua is one of the key forestry counties in Hunan province. 安化县是湖南省重点林区县之一。

25 hectares   

n.公顷（等于2。471英亩）( hectare的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Thousands of hectares of forest are destroyed each year. 每年都有几千公顷的森林遭到破坏。
• There sugar-beet plantation areas were expanded to 176000 hectares. 他们的甜菜种植面积增加到176000公顷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

26 grandchildren   

n.孙子；孙（女），外孙（女）( grandchild的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He left a bequest to each of his grandchildren. 他给他的孙辈每人留下一笔遗产。
• His grandchildren afforded him his greatest pleasure in his old age. 他的孙子和孙女们在晚年的时候给了他最大的欢乐。 来自《简明英汉词典》

27 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。