The great American architect Richard Morris Hunt (1827–1895) will always be associated with our country’s Gilded Age. Known for his grand houses, he designed what’s still the largest house in America: George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore House. The North Carolina mansion was one of Hunt’s last projects, and was actually completed a few months after his death.
Wealthy patrons like the Vanderbilts allowed Hunt the opportunity to create beautiful buildings, which established standards of classicism and refinement in a nation still carving itself from a new frontier.
