This is America. Гришенкова Е.Г. - 22 стр.

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22
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 iron. 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.
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.
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, marble, 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 permit visitors to
reach books that are kept near the top. The paintings in this reading room are
beautiful, too.
Later, we visit rooms below ground level. The people who worked for the
Vanderbilt family lived in this lower part. The Vanderbilts employed about eighty
people to take care of the house. This included cooks, bakers, 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
separate 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.
We finally come back to the front door of the house. Yet there is still much to
see at the Biltmore estate.

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