Lady on the Hill: How Biltmore Became an American Icon

Book Description

"What William Cecil has accomplished at Biltmore Estate is one of the great preservation success stories of all time. He has set a high standard for what all historic house museums strive for: magnificently preserved buildings and grounds, engaging interpretation, and—perhaps most challenging of all—economic self-sufficiency. It is no surprise that Biltmore Estate is widely recognized as one of America's finest places to visit."
—Richard Moe, President of the National Trust for Historic Preservation

"Biltmore is a glorious national historic landmark that, through creative vision and entrepreneurial management, preserves and provides insight into a way of life in the early 1900s. Bill is the imaginative and multifaceted leader who has built this great monument to enrich his community. George and I admire his dedication and success."
—George and Abby Rockefeller O'Neill

"Bill Cecil and his team at Biltmore Estate have sure proved that they know how to build a successful business. They did it the old-fashioned way: embrace a bold idea that others said could not be done and—through commitment, determination, and hard work—bring it to life. Their achievement against the odds is inspiring, and their vision and perseverance are valuable lessons to us all."
—Don Logan, Chairman, Media & Communications Group, Time Warner

"If George Vanderbilt did nothing more than engage the two most prominent and storied designers of their time, architect Richard Morris Hunt and landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, to carry out his vision of a European estate in the southern Appalachians, he would have created an American icon. The beauty of the method by which the estate was executed and, even today, the meticulous attention to detail, in the presentation and care of the estate by William Cecil, have brought history to life."
—Gary J. Walters, Chief Usher, The White House

Customer Reviews:

Lady on the Hill.......2007-07-12

I've read and studied regarding the lives of the Vanderbilt families and the Biltmore inparticular. This is truly one of the BEST books I've read. We've all learned about the house and George Vanderbilt's ideas and thinking on building Biltmore. This book describes the life of his wife Edith and their daughter Cornelia after his death and what they had to go through to keep Biltmore after his death. The research is absolutely amazing. For anyone who is interested or obsessed with The Biltmore, this is a MUST read.

Like Going To Biltmore School.......2007-06-27

Half way through the book it just becomes tedious. There is a fair amount of repetition. I had to purchase another book because this one lacks enough photos. We are planning a trip there in the coming weeks
and now I think I know more than I need to know.

Biltmore Since George Died.......2007-03-09

This book is intriguing for those who enjoy nonfiction. It describes how Biltmore formed a business to keep from being sold and subdivided, what happened to the family members since George's death, and the relationship between Biltmore and the city of Asheville, among other things. It is extremely interesting if you would like to know more about the history of the estate and its families.

If you are interested in the Vanderbilts or the Biltmore Estate ... read it!.......2006-11-26

There is not a whole lot of literature around when it comes to the Vanderbilts and the Biltmore. SO this book is a refreshing and very easy to read story about the Vanderbilts and their successes leading up to the building of Biltmore taking 6 years.

Everyone that can find the time and is planning to visit the Biltmore should read this before going. The Biltmore is so large and there are so many things to see that a visit requires some advanced planning to get the whole picture about this family and this American marvel. After our first visit to the Biltmore during this year's Christmas lights, we bought an annual access pass (upgrade while your day pass is still valid and you save a bundle), this and a picture history book. Now we are planning to go back and be prepared to really udnerstand this marvellous site.

BILTMORE.......2006-10-09

Very interesting read on how Vanderbilt heir's found a way to afford to maintain this behemouth in the foothills of the Appalations. Biltmore is without peer as far as American's great houses go, it looks like the kind of place Frances I and Catherine de Medici would have felt right at home in, it's quite simply a breathtaking tour de force, but as such a true money pit and the proverbial white elephant. You have to give Vanderbilt heir, Mr. Cecil, credit for finding people to tell him how to do what his grandfather could not, and that is to make this place, if not make money, at least break even; indeed, not an easy task. As someone who has toured Richard Morris Hunt's anachronistic Biltmore, I for one applaud his efforts; the mansion looks great and the tour is very well persented, although, very expensive, but I suppose one has to look at it as a donation of sorts, to help to assure the vital survival of this singular American mansion, and the fact it helps enrich, the already rich Vanderbilt's, I suppose it an unfortunate biproduct I can live with, frankly the Vanderbilt's, thanks to the slash and burn ruthlessness of the Commador, will probably always have wealth, well at least they gave us Anderson Cooper. Good read, highly recommended.

The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce

Average customer rating:

Great read!
money talks
My Mansion is Bigger Than Your Mansion
How Rock n' Roll Became Big Business - Should we revolt?
A review by a Springsteen fan

The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce
Fred Goodman
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Business | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0679743774
Release Date: 1998-03-31

Amazon.com

If you wanted to write the definitive history of rock music, you'd need three things: a deep appreciation of the music, an understanding of business, and a journalist's skills and instincts. Fred Goodman has all three, and The Mansion on the Hill is a must-read for anyone interested in how a counter-cultural phenomenon with moral overtones became--in a mere thirty years--a multibillion-dollar business. Goodman, a former editor at Rolling Stone, traces the arc of this weird transformation by focusing principally on the stories of a handful of key artists and their managers--Bob Dylan and Albert Grossman, Neil Young and David Geffen, and Bruce Springsteen and Jon Landau--but the book is richly populated with others, famous and not-so-famous. Goodman makes good use of his extensive research (he conducted 200 interviews over three years), and admirably balances reportorial analysis with a certain passion for the values that rock music once stood for--and sometimes still does.

Book Description

In 1964, on the brink of the British Invasion, the music business in America shunned rock and roll. There was no rock press, no such thing as artist management -- literally no rock-and-roll business. Today the industry will gross over $20 billion. How did this change happen?

From the moment Pete Seeger tried to cut the power at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival debut of Bob Dylan's electric band, rock's cultural influence and business potential have been grasped by a rare assortment of ambitious and farsighted musicians and businessmen. Jon Landau took calls from legendary producer Jerry Wexler in his Brandeis dorm room and went on to orchestrate Bruce Springsteen's career. Albert Grossman's cold-eyed assessment of the financial power at his clients' fingertips made him the first rock manager to blaze the trail that David Geffen transformed into a superhighway. Dylan's uncanny ability to keep his manipulation of the business separate from his art and reputation prefigured the savvy -- and increasingly cynical -- professionalism of groups like the Eagles.

Fred Goodman, a longtime rock critic and journalist, digs into the contradictions and ambiguities of a generation that spurned and sought success with equal fervor. The Mansion on the Hill, named after a song title used by Hank Williams, Neil Young, and Bruce Springsteen, breaks new ground in our understanding of the people and forces that have shaped the music.

Customer Reviews:

Great read!.......2007-01-10

This is a must read book for people interested in going into the music business and sheds light on the inner workings of the industry.

money talks.......2006-03-27

If you like Jon Landau after reading this book, there could be something wrong with you. Not only did he have a hand in producing one of the most egregiously muted rock records of all time (the MC5's Back in the USA), he was a definitive driving force behind the corporate side of music. He's not the only slimey piece of work involved in this book, there are many.
There's no question that Landau made a lot of money for a lot of people (including himself), as did all the 'buisnessmen' in this book, the problem I have is that they cannot be considered music fans. If they are at all, it's a distant second to their love of money. A good book that's worth reading.

My Mansion is Bigger Than Your Mansion.......2006-02-23

If you have ever winced at the rapid co-opting of 60's and early 70's rock music by big business and/or mercenary musicians, if you have ever gritted your teeth at paying $15+ for a CD and then wondered who gets your money, if you ever hoped that there was once something culturally meaningful in the rock scene and wondered what happened, then this book will provide many answers. Two things made this book difficult for me: 1) Goodman lays out details and names names with such frequency I could have used a glossary listing of the major players cynically manipulating the burgeoning cultural shifts of the "summer of love" from radio to underground newspapers to rock venues 2) the machinations of many of the artists and most of their managers illustrate such a sad, greedy side of humanity. Everyone who gets rich--really, really, really rich--does it by successfully, often ruthlessly, exploiting consumer willingness to pay for rock and roll product. The organist of Springsteen's E Street band, Danny Federici, sums up one of their mega-tours this way: "We started out as a band, which turned into a super, giant corporate money-making machine." And that about sums up the last 40 years of rock and roll. My advice: read this book, then seek out all of the really great musicians (and CD labels) out there who haven't been sucked up into mega-marketing campaigns, corporate sponsored tours, and manufacturing soundtracks for multinational companies.

How Rock n' Roll Became Big Business - Should we revolt?.......2005-04-09

I found this book fascinating - a concise history of the growth of rock from the folk era to Bruce Springsteen. I remember seeing Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor and many others on their first concert tours through Detroit. Sure we loved their music and counter-culture sensibilities; it was the end of the sixties. We loved local hero Bob Seger too and hoped he would make it big someday. He did. "Like a Rock!"

Should we blame David Geffin and other businessmen for enjoying music, recognizing talent, nurturing it, and marketing it to reach a wider, generationally-Woodstock targeted audience? I think not. Business is an art too, taking risks, making investments, helping products find customers. Most artists (except, maybe Dylan according to Goodman) don't want to be bothered with the business side of things but discovered they had to be. Is that so wrong? Heck, even Jerry Garcia has a line of neckties out. Does it matter if Cher is an artist or a product. Perhaps, the blurring of that distinction bothers some people more than others. After all, Kurt Cobain took his artistic integrity to the grave.

Rolling Stone magazine has had great articles on how the Rolling Stones and other groups mount tours using a 5-year business plan. Mick didn't go to the London School of Economics for nothing. The Stones develop a business plan for investors and execute it to the tee. Guess what, you don't have to buy concert tickets if you think that's selling out. They're making a living, a very profitable one at that.

But, think of the sacrifices that artists make - subjecting themselves to long, lonely road trips, the ravages of drugs and alcohol, and hot sex with groupies. It's a hard knock life, just watch VH1's "Behind the Music." Would you trade your nice suburban home, your SUV, wife, and kids for all that grief?

The counter-culture has evolved and a pop culture business model prevails. A counter-culture still exists; they're called accountants and they count the money.

I'm told the #1 selling record in 1951 was "On Top of Old Smokey," imagine that! Think of "Your Hit Parade" or Mitch Miller sing-a-longs instead of rap music, for instance. For those of us who were present at the creation of rock n' roll -Bill Haley & the Comets, Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Everly Brothers, and Buddy Holly - the problem is that music seems to have lost its artistic integrity while continuing to refine its commercial interests.

(Q: What's the diffence between Dick Clark on American Bandstand introducing us to Fabian and Simon Cowell on American Idol introducing us to Rueben? A: About 50 years of marketing prowess.)

The downside of the music industry is that for us old foggies the Backstreet Boys will never replace the Beach Boys in our hearts. Nick and Jessica (Newlyweds) will never be as interesting as Ike and Tina (or Sonny and Cher, for that matter). Although I must admit, the Spice Girls were more interesting to watch than the Lennon Sisters.

Want to see a sell out? How about the Prince of Heavy Metal Ozzy Osbourne's tv show? His marketing-savy wife has paraded him around like a chimpanzee at the circus. That's the curse of the collision of rock and commerce if you ask me.

Great book though, read it and re-evaluate music history if you are not revolted by rock as an "Entertainment BUSINESS."

A review by a Springsteen fan.......2003-09-10

My motivation for purchasing this book was my belief, based on other reviews, that it would present some new unbiased insights into the work of my favorite artist Bruce Springsteen and add some balance to the what I've read over the years from the Dave Marsh and Jon Landau propaganda machine. Although it did provide this, unfortunately (for me), very little of the book was actually devoted to Springsteen and the other artists mentioned in the title. The book is more a history of the record industry, chronicling its rise from its roots in the underground music scene of the mid to late sixties, to it's present form as multi-national conglomerates. It presents the story as a morality tale of a sixties paradise lost and it's consumption by the dark forces of capitalism .

The author while having researched his material very well, brings some biases into his work, typical of his generation. These biases become glaringly obvious when reading the book. One of these is his implication that someone like Springsteen, because he has maintained a consistently high level of commercial success over the years, is a sell-out, and a manufactured creation of his manager. Whereas someone like Neil Young, because he hasn't been ashamed to release some real crap, is an artist of integrity, who won't give in to crass commercialism, by always giving his fans music that they will actually enjoy.

I will agree with the author to some extent, that Jon Landau as manager and producer has had a huge influence on Springsteen. However, by using this to tear down the integrity of the artist himself, he better be prepared to do the same to the Beatles, The Stones and Elvis, all of whom had managers and/or producers that influenced them and pushed their work and careers in directions they would not have gone in, on their own.

Book Description

What it was like to be as rich as Rockefeller: How a house gave shape and meaning to three generations of an iconic American family

One hundred years ago America’s richest man established a dynastic seat, the granite-clad Kykuit, high above the Hudson River. Though George Vanderbilt’s 255-room Biltmore had recently put the American country house on the money map, John D. Rockefeller, who detested ostentation, had something simple in mind—at least until his son John Jr. and his charming wife, Abby, injected a spirit of noblesse oblige into the equation. Built to honor the senior Rockefeller, the house would also become the place above all others that anchored the family’s memories. There could never be a better picture of the Rockefellers and their ambitions for the enormous fortune Senior had settled upon them.

The authors take us inside the house and the family to observe a century of building and rebuilding—the ebb and flow of events and family feelings, the architecture and furnishings, the art and the gardens. A complex saga, The House the Rockefellers Built is alive with surprising twists and turns that reveal the tastes of a large family often sharply at odds with one another about the fortune the house symbolized.

Customer Reviews:

Rockerfellers House.......2007-08-02

I read this book from an architect's viewpoint, and it squares with my experience that there is something about homebuilding that is intensely personal. Much has been written about visionary Designers. In fact, it is the clients who hire and steer those designers who are writing their world views large. I visited Kykuit once and thought the design was quirky for a pile from the mansion age...quirky but with vim & vigor, bold but not bombastic. Now I know how it got to be that way.

Among the Mansions of Eden: Tales of Love, Lust, and Land in Beverly Hills

Average customer rating:

Best Book of it's Kind
A Great Real Estate History of Beverly Hills
Among the Mansions of Eden
Be Careful What You Ask For
Hilarious and Revealing

Among the Mansions of Eden: Tales of Love, Lust, and Land in Beverly Hills
David Weddle
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0060198176
Release Date: 2003-03-18

Book Description

Among the Mansions of Eden is a fascinating and dishy exploration of Beverly Hills -- a rarefied community that has become a part of our country's mythos, a city renowned for its ostentatious displays of wealth. It takes you behind the gates of the rich and famous for an insider's view of the elite's rapturous and tragic attempts to realize the American Dream.

From Rodeo Drive to Beverly Hills High School, Among the Mansions of Eden tells the city's story by capturing the individuals who are emblematic of various factions of Beverly Hills society: The cast of unforgettable characters includes the late Milton Berle, who spent his last days surrounded by aging cronies in the cavernous ballroom of the Friars Club, haunted by the ghosts of the past; Fred Hayman, a former banquet manager who opened a boutique called Giorgio and transformed Rodeo Drive from a provincial retail district to a phantasmagoric midway that caters to the world's most affluent shoppers; Gavin de Becker, a poor kid from a broken home who became the security broker to the stars; Mark Hughes, the health-supplement wunderkind who parlayed a trunkful of vitamin pills into a billion-dollar empire known as Herbalife and planned to build his own San Simeon on the last undeveloped mountaintop in Beverly Hills; Jim Forester, a teenager with an overriding passion for a righteous buzz that led him on a Dante-esque journey through the city's underworld of pushers, delinquents, scam artists, and sleazoids; and Norm Zadeh, who used the millions he made as a hedge-fund manager to start a girlie magazine, fill a Beverly Hills mansion with curvaceous nymphets, and emulate the life of Hugh Hefner.

You'll also meet a fascinating array of con artists, hucksters, and libido-crazed pleasure seekers and gun fetishists who are willing to resort to whatever means necessary to steal a piece of the Beverly Hills Dream. Among the Mansions of Eden weaves their individual stories into a spellbinding tale of wealth, fame, and the lust for land, power, and social status in the most opulent city in America.

Customer Reviews:

Best Book of it's Kind.......2005-07-29

I've read a lot of these "tell all" books and David Weddle's is by far the most impressive. He's a great story teller- expertly weaving the past with the present in a style that is both baudy and touching at the same time. I found myself rereading certain paragraphs that were so well crafted and yet completely serving to that particular anecdote. There is no wasted space in this book (read the first 30 pages and you probably know more than the average citizen whose spent their entire life there).
This book wasn't written in a day- and it shows. Well done.

A Great Real Estate History of Beverly Hills.......2003-08-02

Originally born in California, I travel often to Los Angeles on business and pleasure and enjoy looking at Westside real estate and staying at the Peninsula Hotel. While this book limits it's history to Beverly Hills leaving out other interesting areas like Bel Air, it does a magnificent job of summarizing the history of 90210 as well as chronologically tracing the changes in the city.

Some of the significant stories that I liked were the history of the original developer, the influx of what were considered lower status people, ie, actors, the history of the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Arab influence in the 1970s and the changing retail environment of the Golden Triangle. This book also has some great pictures. My personal favorite was the BH Hotel with massive empty land all around. If you've been by in the last 30 years you know how weird empty land appears.

This book also devotes a chapter to a Howard Hefner wannabe who started Perfect 10 magazine. Beverly Hills definitely attracts beautiful women, many of whom are looking for a way to live in the mansions. Also, there is a great chapter on the founder of Herbalife who came from nothing to own a great old mansion while planning to build a 40,000 sq. foot mansion. One year later, he's dead.

If you want a history of Beverly Hills and what it is like to live there, this is the perfect book.

Among the Mansions of Eden.......2003-05-22

Mr. Weddle is our Virgil taking us on a tour of some of the poshest circles in the world. Lifting the curtain he allows us access to a world we can only dream about, to discover a nightmare world of bloated egos as well as bankbooks, that sadly proves ephemeral. Intriguing, eye-opening and fun!

Be Careful What You Ask For.......2003-05-20

As a twenty-year resident of Beverly Hills, I found Among the Mansions of Eden fascinating. It's the first book I've read that actually talks about what happens here. Throughout his investigation into the checkered history of Beverly Hills, Weddle's wry pen skewers a series of what seem to be over-the-top archetypes, but by the time he's finished, he's deftly revealed them as very human beings driven by understandable demons. I expect his penetrating look into the drug scene and quiet racism of this town to draw intense criticism, but his observations match my first-hand knowledge. And his observations concerning the corrosive effects of too much "success" resonated long after I put the book down.

Hilarious and Revealing.......2003-05-20

I found "Among the Mansions of Eden" to be a hilarious and riveting study of the rich who go to Beverly Hills to build their personal monuments. David Weddle lays bare the fallacy of materialism. He does this not by simply ridiculing the materialists--though god knows they ask for it--but by getting inside their heads and understanding their doomed aspirations. He sees that materialism is a romantic impulse, heartfelt and desperate. The wealthy erect their impossibly oversized palaces in the hope that they can build a perfect world and thus bring grace and contentment to their lives. By looking to the outside world and material achievement instead if within for fulfillment they of course end up failing, but do so spectacularly.

This book is full of unforgettable characters: greedy real estate hustlers, aging movie stars, porno kings who aspire to emulate Hugh Hefner, Iranian refugees who arrived in Beverly Hills with millions of dollars stuffed in their pockets, high school druggies, body guards to the stars and snake oil salesmen who struck it big through infomercials. It is not just about the wealthy, but all of us who are endlessly fascinated by their outrageous exploits. It is about one version of the American Dream that Beverly Hills has come to represent--a twisted and corrosive dream but one that has a everlasting hold on the American imagination.

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Harbor Hill: Portrait of a House
Richard Guy Wilson
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0393732169

Book Description

The story of a grand estate erected at the turn of the last century, an embodiment of the excess of the Gilded Era. <|

A "palace" ruled by a "queen," Harbor Hill in Roslyn, Long Island, was commissioned by the beautiful and imperious Katherine Duer Mackay, wife of one of the country's wealthiest men. The mansion, along with its magnificent furnishings, art, and gardens, and the owners' striving, hubris, and ultimate failure are the dramatis personae of this saga. Stanford White, Harbor Hill's architect, wrote, "with the exception of Biltmore, I do not think there will be an estate equal to it in the country." Detailing the extravagant product of the owners' desire for social acceptance, the story encompasses western mining and old versus new wealth, religious differences and the building of a church, art collecting, and many people—from the architects, builders, and workers to the servants and staff who ran the house and gardens. Harbor Hill's story includes elements of farce and tragedy: in a sense an American portrait. 175 duotone and 8 color photographs.

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Bunker-Hill: Last of the Lofty Mansions
William Pugsley , and Roy W. Hankey
Manufacturer: Pentrex Media Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Beacon Hill Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions

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Beacon Hill Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions
Chamberlain Allen
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000LBIBIG

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Beacon Hill,: Its ancient pastures and early mansions,
Allen Chamberlain
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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Fool on a hill
Stan Farmer
Manufacturer: Tidal-Tale Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: 0967922208

The Mansion of History (McGraw-Hill paperbacks)

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The Mansion of History (McGraw-Hill paperbacks)
Carl G. Gustavson
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0070252769

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