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- Experience a ‘Gilded Age’ Christmas
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- Big Tom: Legend and Reality
- Wreck Diving: Battle of the Atlantic
- Gas Prices Dent NC Tourism
- A North Carolina 4th of July
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- On Memorial Day: NC’s Rich Military History
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Experience a ‘Gilded Age’ Christmas
November 17th, 2008
…and Visit the North Pole!

Erin Brethauer,
Asheville Citizen-Times
The economic news has been getting progressively worse and worse through the fall, politicians tell us we’re in for hard times, something the resourceful people of North Carolina are quite accustomed to. In the mountainous west of the state - designated in the best of times as an officially “depressed region” - the #1 source of income is tourism and our tremendous natural beauty in all seasons still draws millions of appreciative visitors from all over the world.
One of the most famous of the WNC attractions is America’s only genuine castle, the beautiful Biltmore Estate, once home to George Vanderbuilt and his wife Edith Stuyvesant Dresser, the estate continues the tradition of holiday festivities begun by the Vanderbuilts on Christmas Eve of 1895. With 4 acres of floor space, 250 rooms, 34 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces, there’s plenty to decorate in the ornate style of the estate’s roots in America’s “Gilded Age.”
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