When a 34-foot-tall Fraser fir tree is brought into America’s largest home – The Biltmore House – it’s a sure sign that Christmas is just around the corner.
Santa Claus, aboard a horse-drawn carriage, ushered the massive tree to the home that George Vanderbilt opened to his friends and family on Christmas Eve 1895. Christmas at Biltmore, the estate’s annual holiday event, starts officially Nov. 4, 2016, and runs through Jan. 8, 2017.
More than 40 Biltmore staff members hoisted the tree onto their shoulders and carried the tree into the home’s 70-foot-tall Banquet Hall, where they raised it using a system of ropes to secure it into place. More staff members festooned the tree with hundreds of lights, toys and wrapped packages. The tree will remain in the Hall throughout the event. It joins more than 60 other hand-decorated Christmas trees that light up the rooms of Biltmore House.
Christmas Tree-Raising at Biltmore time lapse video is available here.