Biltmore Estate in Asheville has gone well beyond a good scrubbing with a complete restoration of the second floor living hall, taking it back to its original configuration and purpose: a formal hall and portrait gallery. This includes brand-new reproductions of the original fabric for green velvet draperies, created by French artisans just as they would have been in the early 1890s. The refurbished rooms – the work extended to an adjacent hallway – opened to the public this past Labor Day weekend. The restoration of the hall extended to a second space, the connected hallway that runs from the door to George’s bedroom at the west end of second floor hall, past the oak sitting room where he and his wife Edith would breakfast together, to the door to Edith’s quarters, and the stairways beyond. Visitors familiar with the hall will notice that one door, in the east wall, has disappeared (it had been added to facilitate foot traffic) and another, in the south wall, has been shifted from one side of the fireplace to the other – its original location.