THE CONUNDRUM OF WEALTH

Last week Arlena and I took a bus trip with some family and friends to tour the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and the Biltmore Estate outside Asheville, NC. The Park is the only National Park that has no entrance fee. The Biltmore charges $49 plus and extra $10 if you want to carry along an audio about the mansion while taking a walking tour through it. If you don’t do the audio, you miss too much. The audio came with our tour package, thankfully.

The bus trip through the Park was like being submerged in God’s creation. Even though most of the leaves had already turned colors, they had also fallen to the ground. No matter, enough remained to stare in awe. Yes, I had seen beautiful fall foliage hundreds of time, maybe thousands. But every time there is the awe-factor, really, the God-factor, that can easily overwhelm and does.

The next day we drove to the Biltmore Estate. As the bus came around the final bend of the three-mile entrance way, there stood The Biltmore. It, too, was an awesome sight. The mansion has 250 rooms, over 40 bathrooms, a huge indoor swimming pool all contained in almost 179,000 square feet of space. All this and much more was the home for three people.

Yes, the staff lived in the house and many more were housed on the grounds giving employment to probably a hundred or more people and being paid “New York wages” as the audio informed us. Descendants of the first employees still live and work on the property. Yet, there is that nagging feeling that comes over you when you stand in awe of the structure, tour the building and grounds, try to calculate the millions of dollars it cost to build and furnish the place and think, “All this for three people!”

Over a million visitors come to the Biltmore each year. George Washington Vanderbilt, the grandson of Cornelius whose many millions were passed on to his hands, almost depleted his inheritance building the estate. He died prematurely at 51. His daughter had to open the estate for visitors in order to pay for the upkeep. His grandchildren are following their mother’s lead.

To me the Biltmore Estate is one of those conundrums of wealth. Just because one can built an estate like the Biltmore or, for the less-wealthy, $10-, $15- $20-million homes, should one? My wife and I live in a house too large for us. Should we? Most of us have more than we need even if we always seem to want more. Why? Low self-esteem? Or are we just greedy when enough is never enough but the joy of more never seems to satisfy – so we want more?

The Biltmore mansion is awesome and an example of what awesome wealth can produce. It is also a reminder that wealth can be used for selfish motives while at the same time serving the less affluent. It also asks, “Are there not better ways to use that wealth and still fulfill anything and all that one can desire and certainly, perhaps even more importantly, all one deserves? Actually, as the vista from the porch of the mansion and the road through the Park remind, God has already given us more than we can either desire or deserve.