Last Castle (Kiernan)

The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home
Denise Kiernan, 2017
Touchstone
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 99781476794044


Summary
The fascinating true story behind the magnificent Gilded Age mansion Biltmore—the largest, grandest residence ever built in the United States.

The story of Biltmore spans World Wars, the Jazz Age, the Depression, and generations of the famous Vanderbilt family, and features a captivating cast of real-life characters including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, Teddy Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, Henry James, and Edith Wharton.

Orphaned at a young age, Edith Stuyvesant Dresser claimed lineage from one of New York’s best known families. She grew up in Newport and Paris, and her engagement and marriage to George Vanderbilt was one of the most watched events of Gilded Age society. But none of this prepared her to be mistress of Biltmore House.

Before their marriage, the wealthy and bookish Vanderbilt had dedicated his life to creating a spectacular European-style estate on 125,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness. He summoned the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to tame the grounds, collaborated with celebrated architect Richard Morris Hunt to build a 175,000-square-foot chateau, filled it with priceless art and antiques, and erected a charming village beyond the gates.

Newlywed Edith was now mistress of an estate nearly three times the size of Washington, DC and benefactress of the village and surrounding rural area. When fortunes shifted and changing times threatened her family, her home, and her community, it was up to Edith to save Biltmore — and secure the future of the region and her husband’s legacy.

The Last Castle is the unique American story of how the largest house in America flourished, faltered, and ultimately endured to this day. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 31, 1968
• Where—N/A
• Education—M.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in Asheville, North Carolina


Denise Kiernan is an American journalist, producer and author who lives in Asheville, North Carolina. She has authored several history titles, including Signing Their Rights Away (with Joseph D'Agnese, 2011), The Girls of Atomic City (2013), and The Last Castle: The Epic Story of Love, Loss, and American Royalty in the Nation's Largest Home (2017)

Education
Kiernan graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts with an emphasis in music. She earned a BA degree from the Washington Square and University College of Arts & Science in 1991 and an MA from the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development of New York University in 2002.

Career
Kiernan started out in journalism, and as a freelance writer, her work appeared in the New York Times, Village Voice, Wall Street Journal, and Ms. Magazine among other publications. She served as the head writer for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire during its first season. She has produced pieces for ESPN and MSNBC.

Additionally, she has authored several popular history titles and ghost written books for athletes, entrepreneurs and actresses. Her most recent book, The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II, traces the story of the women who worked on the Manhattan Project, unknowingly helping to create the fuel for the world's first atomic bomb. The book became a New York Times best seller in its first week of publication.

Personal life
Kiernan is married to author and journalist Joseph D'Agnese, with whom she co-authored several books including Stuff Every American Should Know (2012); Signing Their Rights Away (2011); Signing Their Lives Away (2009). (From Wiipedia. Retrieved 2/21/2014 .)

Book Reviews
In The Last Castle, Denise Kiernan tries to reveal the answer to what is surely the greatest mystery for any of Biltmore's million annual visitors: Who, exactly, conceived of such a huge undertaking? What kind of bachelor really wanted to inhabit a 250-room house, replete with indoor swimming pool and bowling alley? … Kiernan's wider lens on the Gilded Age compensates for her protagonists' insipidness. The book's vitality lies in the details she reveals about the architects, writers, artists and peers of the Vanderbilts who spent time at the Biltmore.
Vicky Ward - New York Times Book Review


Part diary, part journalism, part social critique, the book’s broad narrative humanizes the rich and effectively characterizes an era. Kiernan’s almost 100 pages of meticulous research notes and photos lend a reassuring gravity to the ethereal world to which we are introduced.
Russell J. MacMullan Jr. - Washington Independent Review of Books


Evocative, meticulously researched.… Kiernan brings a deft eye for detail and observation to a very different kind of story.… Her re-creation of Biltmore’s origins hits like a flute of fine champagne while lending social context to the mansion.… The Last Castle is Edith Wharton’s ‘The Age of Innocence sprung to life.… Biltmore is an ideal vessel for an exploration of our worship of affluence and social cachet, and more importantly, the American myth of classlessness. The Last Castle plumbs these themes and history with subtle insight and élan.
Knoxville News-Sentinel


But reading The Last Castle, the flowing novel-like narrative really is "about America." It's about celebrity culture, wealth disparity, the remarkable charity and foresight of a few wealthy people, the urge to create and maintain a family legacy and, in its darker moments, the ever-present potential for personal tragedy. It's grounded in Kiernan's years of globe-trotting research and yet also immediately relevant to the topics that clog social media in 2017.
Asheville Citizen-Times


This thoroughly researched book… [has] plenty of famous characters sprinkled throughout, there is enough action and history to keep readers engaged and eager to turn the pages.  —Mattie Cook, Lake Odessa Comm. Lib., MI
Library Journal


The many diverting detours Kiernan takes make the book enticing for even those who will never set foot on Biltmore grounds.
Booklist


Kiernan discloses little about [the Vanderbilts'] personalities and nothing about their courtship or relationship as husband and wife.… One-dimensional characters undermine the potential drama of life within a castle.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think Denise Kiernan chose to title her book The Last Castle? In what ways does Biltmore function like a castle for George Vanderbilt and his family? How does it differ?

2. Edith Vanderbilt’s mother hailed from the Fish-LeRoy and Stuyvesant families. These families were "exceptionally well known in New York circles where names carried the weight of history and bore the shackles of expected romantic pairings" (p. 3). What expectations do Edith; her mother, Susan Fish LeRoy; and their peers face with regard to marriage? Do you think these expectations lead to some disastrous marital pairings among Edith’s peers? If so, give some examples.

3. Describe the origins of the name that George chooses for his Asheville estate. What does "Biltmore" signify? Why do you think it’s important for George to choose a name for his estate? The citizens of Asheville have mixed reactions to the name "Biltmore." Discuss them.

4. Kiernan describes William B. Osgood Field as being "like the Nick Carraway to George’s Gatsby: playing matchmaker, yet unable to keep up with his friend financially" (p. 99). Describe George’s friendship with Field. Do you think Kiernan’s comparison is apt? Why or why not? What other friendships are particularly important to George?

5. When Field accompanies George Vanderbilt to Europe, George’s sisters inform Field that "he should be more than George’s companion on this trip. He should seek to help George land his life’s companion" (p. 81). Why do George’s sisters think that Edith is a good match for him? Do you agree? What considerations must someone of George’s social class take into account when looking for a spouse?

6. During the Gilded Age, being "a son of the Vanderbilt dynasty was to have your every move, dalliance, chance encounter, and passing venture watched and analyzed" (p. 7-8). Why do you think the public is so interested in the lives of the Vanderbilt family? Discuss the impact the constant public scrutiny has on the behavior of members of the Vanderbilt family. Can you think of any modern equivalents that are scrutinized in the same way the Vanderbilt family was in their time? Who are they?

7. In letters, George’s niece, Adele, describes herself as "Biltmore homesick" (p. 46). What does she mean by this expression? Why does Adele enjoy herself so much during her visits to Biltmore? How is life better for women of Adele’s social class on country estates? What freedoms are afforded to them that they do not have while they are in cities?

8. One of Edith’s great strengths was that she "strode deftly between . . . two worlds, one of Victorian elegance, the other of rugged mountain simplicity" (p. 156). How is Edith able to move between these two vastly different realms? What about her upbringing may have prepared her for this balance? In what ways is Edith able to make herself an integral part of the greater community in Asheville?

9. When Cornelia is born, the locals honor her by "conferring the ‘tar heel’ moniker upon [her]" (p. 134). How does Cornelia’s birth connect George and Edith with the community in Asheville? Why do the residents feel a sense of ownership over her? Describe Cornelia’s connection to her birthplace as an adult. Were you surprised by it?

10. In 1873, Mark Twain and coauthor Charles Dudley Warner wrote a book about the age of excess in which they lived titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. Do you think "Gilded Age" is an appropriate title for the time? If so, why? Would you have liked to live during the Gilded Age? Why or why not?

11. Why does George Vanderbilt elect to build Biltmore in Asheville, NC? What is the effect that Biltmore has on the region socially, economically, and in terms of infrastructure? If you could build an estate anywhere, where would you do so? Explain your answer.

12. Kiernan writes that Biltmore "may not have been in New York or Newport, but if this house didn’t make an impression on the Four Hundred, nothing would, acorns or no." (p. 66). Explain this statement. What kind of impression did Biltmore make on visitors? Was there anything you found particularly impressive about the house? If there was, discuss it with your book club, explaining why you were so taken with that particular feature.

13. When President McKinley expresses a desire to visit Biltmore, E. J. Harding, the auditor of Biltmore Estate, specifies that McKinley, his wife, and any cabinet members are welcome to the estate, but the media is not. Why does Harding object to the presence of the press? Is he right in doing so? How does the press interact with members of the Four Hundred and with the president? Why do you think McKinley might want to have press during his visit?

14. Lillian Exum Clement, who became the first female legislator in North Carolina, said, "I know that years from now there will be many other women in politics, but you have to start a thing" (p. 245). Discuss the role that women played in politics prior to the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In what ways were women active before they were granted the right to vote?

15. As a young man, George Vanderbilt tells Field that he wants to see the world before getting married, and that when he does get married, "he imagined she would perhaps be ten years his junior" (p. 85). Contrast George’s philosophy with regard to finding a life partner with Field’s. Do you agree with either of the men? Which one and why? Given the men’s philosophies, were you surprised by the choices they made in choosing their spouses?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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