Biltmore, the opulent 250-room French Renaissance chateau, nestled in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, was the vision of George Washington Vanderbilt, carried out by renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt. Construction began in 1889 and the opulent estate, with grounds designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, was opened on Christmas Eve in 1895 to family and friends.

The Audrain Automobile Museum in Newport, Rhode Island is a great place to visit for the history buff as well as the art and automobile enthusiast.

Eagles Nest is the Spanish Revival 24-room mansion on an estate in Centerport, NY overlooking Northport Harbor. The house was commissioned by William K. Vanderbilt II and designed by Warren and Wetmore.

William Seward and Eliza (Lila) Osgood Vanderbilt Webb were married in 1881 and acquired some 32 area farms from 1886 until 1902 to create their 3,800 agricultural estate, Shelburne Farm on Lake Champlain.

William K. Vanderbilt chose architect Richard Morris Hunt to design the 39th birthday present he wanted to give to his wife, Alva. It would be call Marble House and was to be built on Newport’s fashionable Bellevue Avenue. Richard Morris Hunt was the first American educated at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The Breakers is the grandest of Newport’s summer “cottages” and a symbol of the Vanderbilt family’s social and financial pre-eminence in turn-of-the-century America. The mansion was built for Cornelius Vanderbilt II and his wife Alice, on 13 acres, and is named after the waves that crash at the base of the cliffs. The Italian Renaissance-style mansion replaced a smaller home on the site that was completely destroyed by fire in 1892. Architect Richard Morris Hunt was commissioned to design the house modeled after the 16th century palaces and villas of Genoa. The lavish interiors in the 70-room mansion were the work of Jules Allard & Sons of Paris and Ogden Codman, Jr.

Newport is a beautiful city and worth a visit no matter what time of the year. Located on the southern end of Aquidneck Island, it has a historic district that includes an extensive and well-preserved variety of intact colonial buildings dating back to the early and mid-18th century. Some of these homes still stand the way they were 250 years ago, but many were restored in the late 20th century through grants made by Newport resident Doris Duke and the Newport Restoration Foundation.

In 1895, Frederick W. Vanderbilt purchased the Langdon estate, comprised of 153 acres, a structurally unsound house, a farm and 459 acres on the east side of Post Road. Hyde Park was the name of the stately home he commissioned for himself and his wife, Louise and it was built between 1896 and 1899 on approximately 600 acres. The mansion on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River in Hyde Park, N.Y., this was one of several homes owned by the couple.