fashionable for country houses, and the Gun Room, which held mounted trophies and displayed George Vanderbilt's gun collection. Basement The basement level featured activity rooms, including an indoor, 70,000-gallon (265,000-litre and 265-cubic meter) heated swimming pool with underwater lighting, a bowling alley, and a gymnasium with once state-of-the-art fitness equipment. The service hub of the house is also found in the largest basement in the U.S. It holds the main kitchen, pastry kitchen, rotisserie kitchen, walk-in refrigerators that provided an early form of mechanical refrigeration, the servants' dining hall, laundry rooms, and additional bedrooms for staff. Conservatory In the conservatory which has many flowers and trees growing in it, there is even a model railway. Park and landscape Vanderbilt envisioned a park-like setting for his home and employed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds. Olmsted was not impressed with the condition of the and advised having a park surround the house, establishing farms along the river, and replanting the rest as a commercial timber forest, a plan to which Vanderbilt agreed. Gifford Pinchot and later Carl A. Schenck were hired to manage the forests, with Schenck establishing the first forestry education program in the U.S. in 1898, the Biltmore Forest School, on the estate grounds. Another important aspect of the landscaping was the intentionally rustic four-mile (5 km) Approach track that began at the brick quoined and pebbledash stucco Lodge Gate at the edge of Biltmore Village and ended at the sphinx-topped stone pillars at the Esplanade. In between, the lane was densely planted along the borders with natural and uncultivated-looking foliage and shrubbery to provide a relaxing journey for guests. Olmsted made sure to incorporate of formal gardens, which had been requested by Vanderbilt for the grounds directly surrounding the house. He constructed a Roman formal garden, a formal garden, a bush and tulip garden, water fountains, and a conservatory with individual rooms for palms and roses. There was also a bowling green, an outdoor tea room, and a terrace to incorporate the European statuary that Vanderbilt had brought back from his travels. At the opposite end of the Esplanade is the (French for “gentle/soft ramp”), a graduated stairway zigzagging along a rough-cut limestone wall that leads to the grassy slope known as the Vista, topped with a statue of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. Water was an important aspect of Victorian landscaping, and Olmsted