George Washington Vanderbilt II

So, yeah.

And then, of course, a bit more estate, which was George Vanderbilt's enormous estate built in the 1800s.

So a lot of good things.

I do love North Carolina.

Welcome to The Post Game, where I reflect on the critical plays of my conversations with our podcast guests.

Today, I'm taking a deeper dive into my conversation with Ryan Cecil and Chase Pickering, great-great-grandsons of George Vanderbilt and fifth-generation leaders of Biltmore Estate.

Okay, this is one of the most famous and private families in the country.

So much to learn from them.

The quote today, Marcus, is I came to this spot and thought the prospect finer than any I'd ever seen.

George Vanderbilt.

That makes sense.

George Vanderbilt, who built this place, who had the vision for the Biltmore and what a vision he had.

And it's really cool to see this place come to life and live through generations to be what it is today.

Absolutely.

There's people in the region that travel here.

So really cool to have that anchor here in Western North Carolina.

So we're going to hear a story from Morgan Housel to kick us off with a little story about the Vanderbilts.

George Vanderbilt, who was one of the big Vanderbilt heirs who inherited billions and billions of dollars, he spent six years building a house called the Biltmore.

It's 135,000 square feet.

You heard that right.

It has 40 master bedrooms and a full-time staff of nearly 400 people.

The craziest thing about it is that George Vanderbilt allegedly spent very little time in the house.

And there's this quote where he talks about how little time he spent there.

And he says, quote, the house is utterly unaddressed to any possible arrangement of life.

A New York Times reporter discovered this to be a lie – Morgan was actually seen perfectly well with his mistress in France on the very day Titanic sank.

Industrialist Henry Clay Frick and his wife, banker Horace J. Harding and billionaire George Washington Vanderbilt, all connected to J.P. Morgan, were amongst several other prominent figures who cancelled at the last minute.

The SS Californian, also owned by JP Morgan, was a large passenger ship that was ultimately blamed for the loss of life on the Titanic.

It behaved somewhat oddly around the time of the Titanic's voyage.

A New York Times reporter discovered this to be a lie – Morgan was actually seen perfectly well with his mistress in France on the very day Titanic sank.

Industrialist Henry Clay Frick and his wife, banker Horace J. Harding and billionaire George Washington Vanderbilt, all connected to J.P. Morgan, were amongst several other prominent figures who cancelled at the last minute.

The SS Californian, also owned by J.P. Morgan, was a large passenger ship that was ultimately blamed for the loss of life on the Titanic.

It behaved somewhat oddly around the time of the Titanic's voyage.

I tell them about the parkway, the history of the parkway.

I tell them about George Vanderbilt and all we have, all we owe him because he built that French Chateau here.

We have the Pisgah Forest.

It's over 500,000 acres, the equivalent of the Smokies.

Yep, many, many miles.

Okay.

So I take them, frequently show them Buck Springs Overlook is where George Vanderbilt had his hunting lodge.

Okay.