HOUSE CLEANING AT BILTMORE - The leatherbound books in the library are treated with a _
lanolin mixture which must be applied by hand. It is left to dry overnight and then polished
before each book is put back on the shelf. :
Cleaning This House
Is A Major Task
How do you keep a house
clean that has 250 rooms
-many of them filled with
priceless antiques and art ob-
jects - 43 bathrooms, a bowl-
ing alley, indoor and outdoor
swimming pools, an indoor
gymnasium and has about
1,500 people dropping in for
visits almost every day of the
year?
If it’s the famed Biltmore
House, you clean every day
and you clean very carefully.
Keeping the largest private
residence in America clean is
not all that difficult from
keeping your own house
clean, according to Pat Ray,
one of 22 people assigned full-
time to housekeeping and
maintenance duties at the
Vanderbilt Estate. In this
case, she said, there’s just a
lot more to clean.
Since the house is closed
only on Thanksgiving,
Christmas Day and New
Year’s Day, housecleaning is
an ongoing job, even during
peak visitation periods, said
Bruce Maxwell, chief of
maintenance and housekeep-
ing. ‘We save the big jobs un-
til January, February and
March,” he said, when visita-
tion is at its lowest.
. Visitors enjoy watching the
cleaning, Mrs. Ray said. “It’s
a treat for them.”” Many ask
advice on cleaning and many
offer advice, she said.
Cleaning the French
Renaissance chateau may be
similar in some ways to
cleaning your own home, but
there are distinct differences.
Not many private homes
have scores of 19th century
Persian rugs on the floors, or
furniture made of mahogany
and walnut, or a chess table
once used by Napoleon, or a
library that contains 20,000
volumes.
So what secret concotion
would you use to dust a Louis
XV chair, or a mahogany
Chippendale table, or a burl-
ed walnut bedstead?
“A damp cloth,” Maxwell
said, ‘that’s all. We don’t use
any kind of furniture polish or
oil because it builds up on the
wood and attracts more
dust.”
To clean the wood paneled
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walls, however, Maxwell said
he uses a bees wax based
solution. ‘‘It makes the walls
shine and doesn’t attract
dust,” he said.
As for dusting some of the
more valuable items in the
house, such as a Han Dynasty
Chinese vase, or a 16th Cen-
tury porcelain figurine, or a
17th Century music box,
“You learn to be very
careful,” Mrs. Ray said.
“You learn how to handle
things.” Maxwell said there
have been very few accidents
with valuable items.
Mrs. Ray and her three co-
workers handle mostly the
light housekeeping chores
such as dusting and
polishing. Maxwell said one
person is assigned full-time
to dust mopping floors,
another works full-time
polishing all the brass and
copper fixtures, such as door
and cabinet knobs and
braziers. The Wedgewood
and Spode china have to be
washed regularly, the silver-
ware polished every couple of
weeks. Glass and windows
have to be cleaned as needed.
Drapes, sheers and curtains
have to be washed, vacuum-
ed or drycleaned.
“About the only thing we
don’t try to clean are the
tapestries,” Mrs. Ray said.
“They’re just too fragile.”
Since the carpets are so old
and valuable, a screen wire is
placed over the rugs before
they are vacuumed to keep
wear to a minimum.
While the main cleaning
chores are concentrated on
the 34 upstairs and 18
downstairs rooms open to the
public, the non-public areas
also have to be regularly
cleaned, Mrs. Ray said.
Even the books have to be
cleaned and treated
periodically, according to
Marion McGuinn, estate
librarian. About every 4 or 5
years, all the books are taken
down and their leather bin-
dings treated with a lanolin
and wax mixture, a process
that takes about four months.
“Many people think that
Cinderella
George Vanderbilt was a rare
boek collector,” McGuinn
said. “Not true. This was a
working library and the
books reflect Mr.
Vanderbilt’s interests in the
fields of history, art, ar-
chitecture and landscape
gardening.”
In keeping with
Vanderbilt’s intent of having
a self-sustained working
estate, the 18-person
maintenance crew includes
carpenters, plumbers, elec-
tricians, painters. ‘About the
only things we farm out are
tile and copper work and
stenciling,’’ Maxwell said.
Underway now is a com-
plete electrical rewiring of
the house, a three-year pro-
ject. Maxwell said. it’s the
first time the house has been
rewired since it was com-
pleted in 1895. TR
“We're about two-thirds
finished,”” he said, ‘‘and
we’ve used about 50 rolls of
wire.”” The wiring comes in
500-feet rolls which translates
to about five miles of wiring
so far.
Floors are stripped and
refinished every year, Max-
well said, and ‘‘we try to re-
paint two or three rooms a
year.” Old paint has been
stripped off and new paint
matched as closely as possi-
ble to the original,
Many people who have to
clean house every day com-
plain about the boredom.
This isn’t the case at the
Biltmore House, however.
“Every time you clean you
pick up something different,
something you haven’t seen
before,”” Maxwell said. “It’s
really an interesting job.”
Biltmore Estate includes
‘Biltmore House and Gardens,
Deerpark Restaurant, and
Biltmore Estate Winery,
which is scheduled to open to
the public for tours and
tastings on May 15. The
estate is open daily from 9:00
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. except for
Christmas, Thanksgiving,
and New Year’s days. Admis-
sion is charged.
Pageant
Applications Taken
Applications are now being
accepted for candidate-at-
large contestants-in the 1985
North Carolina Cinderella
Girl Pageant. The pageant
will be held July 11-14, 1985 at
the beautiful Heritage Grand
Hotel, in Heritage Village
USA, near Charlotte, N.C.
There are four age divi-
sions: Tot (3-6); Miniature
Miss (7-9); Miss (10-12); and
Teen (13-17). Competition in-
cludes party dress (evening
gown for teens), sportswear,
and talent (optional).
The Cinderella Pageant is a
youth-oriented program and
is the third largest pageant
scholarship program in the
world. Winners in the state
pageant advance to the Inter-
national Pageant in Miami,
Florida where the winner in
each division receives over
‘$15,000 in cash and prizes.
Each candidate-at-large
will receive a crown, banner,
and trophy to be presented to
her at a lovely candle-light
dinner.
For further information
write N.C. State Director,
1015 Fox Hound Court,
Charlotte, "N.C. 28212.
Telephone (704) 568-5921 or
(704) 857-6385.
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