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Did you know about the Biltmore Estate?

Vocab level: C1
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What's up sunshine? Happy Friday.
I'm Coy Wire on a CNN 10 field trip coming to you from Asheville, North Carolina along the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.
We are on the grounds of America's largest privately owned home, the Biltmore Estate.
And this calls for...
Did you know, the Biltmore estate was built in 1895 by George Vanderbilt, the grandson of famed shipping magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt.
It took 6 years to build.
He and his wife Edith and their daughter Cornelia lived in this 250 room home
with 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms, and 65 fireplaces.
There's also a lot of secret doors and hidden passageways.
Maybe the coolest part though, the 8,000 acre backyard of beauty.
In 1930, the family decided to open the mansion to the public as a way to boost Asheville's economy during the Great Depression.
The estate is still run by the descendant of George Vanderbilt.
And today, about 1.3 million visitors enjoy this nostalgic, whimsical throwback into time each and every year.
You can go horseback riding, hiking, biking, take carriage rides, have a picnic, gallivant through the immaculate gardens and falconry.
The Biltmore Estate is a must-sea spot along with the quaint and gorgeous downtown Asheville.
Now, another part of the reason I'm here today is to highlight the amazing recovery effort
after this eccentric artistic town was devastated by Hurricane Helen.
It has been 9 months since the category 4 storm tore through the Swannanoa River Valley of western North Carolina where flooding and landslides toppled trees, demolished homes and businesses.
And while many of the scars left behind are still fresh,
the amount of progress that has been made to clean up and rebuild is nothing short of remarkable.
Asheville in its surrounding towns rely on tourism to fuel its economy.
And locals are hopeful that this summer visitors, art lovers, and adventure seekers will come back to western North Carolina.
It has been a long road since Helen, but we're excited to get people coming back and know that we're still here and we're rebuilding.
Thank God for volunteers and thank God for donations, but they're putting this town back together.
In times of tragedy or hopelessness, the great Mr. Rogers famously once said, "Look for the helpers."
And North Carolina hasn't had to look far.
Here are just a few of their stories...