The Biltmore estate is a monument to greed and exploitation. Its actions during the pandemic put workers and the public at serious risk
The Biltmore is at the heart of Asheville’s tourism industry. But the largest private home in America — and the array of businesses attached to it — are at heart a celebration of excessive wealth, attached to an ugly history. The Biltmore’s actions during the pandemic are no exception. Blade photographer and writer Orion Solstice provides an inside look at how the aristocracy behind it have put workers and locals at risk during a deadly pandemic — David Forbes, editor
The Biltmore House and Estate is a long standing monument to the financial disparity between the wealthy and Asheville’s working class. While the pandemic continues to run rampant through our local community it holds true to a long history of prioritizing the enjoyment of a few over the well-being of many.
While the pandemic continues to spike in numbers reaching new and devastating totals each day the Biltmore Estate continues to operate with little consideration for the people they are attracting to our small city. They have even less care for those that are trapped in the hard decision of continuing to work while exposing themselves to the danger of large uncontrolled crowds, or being unable to meet their basic needs without assistance or support from a federal or local level.
The Biltmore Estate closed down briefly at the beginning of the pandemic on March 17, for the first time since the 1930’s. That’s right, estate had always stayed during inclement weather or for holidays (much to the indifference to the well-being of those employed there). They only closed at the start of the pandemic under strict orders from the state government.
But the gates didn’t remain shut to the public for long, reopening for passholders and locals to roam the grounds freely on May 9. They re-opened for out-of-state travelers on May 29 with phased reopening of other parts of the estate such as the winery and limited time exhibits throughout June and July. Biltmore claimed they were operating on a reduced capacity. This was untrue.
Forced to return to work or lose their unemployment, employees were greeted by tastefully put-together banners loudly proclaiming their commitment to the safety of workers and tourist alike. These were hung throughout common areas and across their website to soothe the conscience of those who wish to visit in defiance of the actual safety and wishes of the local community. There’s no way to safely visit this tourist trap, nor an effective way to protect workers and in no world, ever, is this monument to exploitation essential.
The fact is, despite the claims of reduced capacity, I’ve witnessed the Biltmore Estate in direct defiance of every state mandate on large gatherings despite claiming to be working closely with public health officials. It’s been this way since their speedy re-opening.
They bend the rules by only letting a certain number of people into the actual house tour at a time and only accounting for that as their capacity. But even when they are staggering the number of people allowed to enter it still results in long lines out front and hundreds of people walking in a row through the tour at a time, gathering in rooms with the best views and sights.
In addition to enforcing the capacity only within the house, they similarly only mandate masks there. Every other part of the estate hosts crowds of people in long lines and eating areas with only a few masks to be seen. The only attempts to control such behavior are a few scattered signs reminding people that there is in fact a pandemic wrecking havoc across our city and the world and to please consider standing on designated spaced out stickers on the ground which are entirely ignored without any actual enforcement present.
The closest you will find to enforcement of the rules will be in the frustrated, exhausted requests from overworked employees. They muster these when they can find the energy to speak against the barrage of disrespect and indifference to their lives and well-being they face every day.
If you talk to the public that are visiting the estate, you will mostly find upper class, and oftentimes right-wing visitors who will more than happily tell you about how they don’t believe in the pandemic. They spout this nonsense through open mouthed breaths and uncovered coughs. They can be found ripping the masks from their face as soon as they exit the house dramatically crying that they cannot breathe, and that it is a human rights violation to be forced to endure the basic requirement of not spreading a virus. They cram themselves close to families and large bridal groups.
Those who choose to vacation during a pandemic are truly the worst of the upper crust, who largely don’t even have the decency to be kind to those risking their lives to make sure they are properly entertained for the weekend. If you ask them where they are visiting from, you will receive a wide variety of answers with familiar names of hot spot cities like New York, Atlanta and Miami, with travel itineraries composed of other cities and attractions on the way that they decided to stop at to maximize the amount of people they could possibly come in contact with during their privileged vacations.
You may be wondering to yourself what difference it makes for a few hundred people to roam the Biltmore Estates with one another, and while a few hundred would have a devastating impact on our community due to how infectious the virus is, the reality of it is much more deviststing at thousands of guests visiting per day from all over the country.
As we approach the holiday season Biltmore continues its annual tradition of Candlelight Celebrations, with extended hours running into the night filled with caroling and beautiful decorations. During a normal Holiday season it can be expected for the Biltmore Estate to see between 5,000 and 12,000 visitors per day, and without any kind of enforcement of a reduced capacity it can be expected that those numbers will largely stay the saem. At the end of the day the highest priority masked behind all the beautiful lights and false promises is how much they can financially squeeze out of tourists, while crunching the numbers of what the lives of the local community is worth. Countless lives are risked to bring more wealth for the already-wealthy.
The largest impact of this will be experienced by those working directly with the public on Biltmore Estate. Because of poorly-enforced safety rules and lack of financial help for those who voluntarily quit, there is little that employees are able to do in order to protect themselves from exposure to the virus.
While most tourists will only interact with employees in passing, the definition of a close contact by the CDC is “Someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period* starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to test specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated. * Individual exposures added together over a 24-hour period (e.g., three five minute exposures for a total of 15 minutes).”
By this definition if an employee were to interact with several people positive for Covid-19 for a few minutes at a time each, this would meet the criteria for contracting the virus. With thousands of gentry visiting with absolute contempt for basic safety rules, the chances of at least one person contracting the virus because of their hazardous job is extremely likely.
Even more so to those that they work with cramped behind tight registers and eating in shared break rooms. Unfortunately the Biltmore Company is also presenting the illusion of this being a safe place to the employees much the same as they are to the tourists, and outside of providing state mandated disposable masks and gloves they are not acknowledging the danger, otherwise they might have to provide hazard pay to those employed risking their lives for $11 to $15 an hour on average.
With such a large mass of people being brought in by this attraction every single day, it is impossible to control the actions of the many that endanger everyone that lives here. No matter how much Biltmore Estate would like to pretend they exist within a paradise exempt from the pandemic, the actual reality is that this company is bringing massive amounts of symptomatic and asymptomatic people to our city under the false sense that a normal vacation can safely be achieved.
The pandemic does not stop at the gates, neither going in or going out as the people who are employed there return to their homes, friends, and families, and as the indifferent tourists scatter across the city to drink craft beer and amass downtown to gawk at the trendy shops and crowded restaurants further wildly exposing locals to danger.
The only way for the Biltmore to be safely present in this community at this time is shut down until the end of the pandemic. The massive tourism attraction is a magnet for visitors from far and wide perpetuating the spread of a deadly virus to locals just trying to survive. Unfortunately as we know from almost every large company operating for profit in this country, they will do anything to ensure they do not lose a single dime even amid the largest health crisis we have ever seen and the loud outcry of our community to stay at home.
The only thing that will stop them would be enforcement of mandates that are already being entirely disrespected in favor of refusing to upset even a single person lest they not spend an additional $10 in a gift shop that day. The Biltmore estate is directly responsible for massive amounts of tourists that visit our city and in its absence the city of asheville as a whole would take a financial hit that our city government has decided is not worth the lives of the hard working people who call this city their permanent home.
If you’re wondering if the Biltmore would be a good get away from the reality we are living in, the answer is it’s not and it should’ve never re-opened in the first place. Always a monument to greed and exploitation, it continues to cost locals their lives and health to make terrible people happy.
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Orion Solstice is a queer trans activist dedicated to bringing truth and beauty into this world through various mediums with a focus on photography. He is a full time artistic freelancer of a wide variety of arts and loving father of an elderly cat companion and five fish.