Answer Man: Biltmore House winter tickets limited? City parking app MIA?

John Boyle, Asheville Citizen Times
·3 min read
The Biltmore Estate has reduced capacity for visits into Biltmore House, meaning fewer reservation times are available each day. In this file photo, visitors tour the grounds outside of the Biltmore House during the annual Biltmore tree-raising on the estate in November 2019.
The Biltmore Estate has reduced capacity for visits into Biltmore House, meaning fewer reservation times are available each day. In this file photo, visitors tour the grounds outside of the Biltmore House during the annual Biltmore tree-raising on the estate in November 2019.

Today’s batch of burning questions, my smart-aleck answers and the real deal:

Question: Since my first visit to Biltmore House and its estate, motoring up the hill from Greenville as a lad with my parents in the late 1940s, I have been in awe of Asheville's signature feature. So, 60 years later when my wife and I retired in Asheville, we began purchasing season passes and have reveled in repeated visits to the mansion, gardens, exhibits, and restaurants. But the benefit of the passes that has given us the most joy is the complimentary tickets during the winter for our guests, especially local friends who cannot afford Biltmore's entrance fee. What a surprise recently when our winter guest vouchers arrived! The passes are only for the gardens, grounds, and commercial enterprises, not for the house. My telephone inquiry reveals that the additional fee for a guest ticket to include the House starts at $29 for some days. Perhaps this new policy is a necessary temporary response to COVID-19. Or is it permanent? Incidentally, my inclusive House and Gardens ticket from the 1940s reads $2.27 for admission and $0.13 for taxes!

My answer: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say folks in the '40s probably were complaining bitterly about those ticket prices being outrageously expensive.

Real answer: Biltmore Estate spokeswoman LeeAnn Donnelly first thanked the guest for supporting Biltmore's "mission to preserve the estate with the purchase of annual passes throughout the years," as well as for the historical information.

"To your reader’s question, to enhance the visit experience for our guests, we have reduced capacity for visits into Biltmore House, and therefore there are less reservation times available each day," Donnelly said. "The Gardens & Grounds tickets provided as part of our Passholder Appreciation season gives guests of our annual passholders a wider range of dates that are available for them to visit."

This file photo shows tulips in peak bloom in the spring.
This file photo shows tulips in peak bloom in the spring.

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Donnelly noted the ticket also provides "a discount of $110 toward the purchase of an annual pass.

"Annual passes do include visits to Biltmore House throughout the year," Donnelly said. "Passholder guests may also use this ticket to upgrade to a daytime house visit for an additional fee."

Last year, I noted the estate had increased fees for annual passes, although not nearly as high as a reader suggested. Donnelly noted then the annual pass "has only increased by $30 since 2018."

Question: When is the city of Asheville going to restore availability to the parking garage app, so we can check how many spaces are available before we head downtown? The website says the app would not be available for "a few days" before and after installing the new equipment in the garages. It's now been weeks. Trying to guess which garage to head to, or driving around from one garage to the next, is not efficient. We need our app! Any info on this?

My answer: In the long list of protest phrases hollered in Pack Square Park, "We need our app!" has to be among the most moving I've heard of late.

Real answer: A couple of readers have asked about this, and the city's Parking Division Manager, Garrett Male, responded.

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"After launching new garage equipment several months ago, Parking Services and Information Technology staff determined that the existing parking availability system for the city’s parking garages would need to be replaced in order to work seamlessly with the new garage equipment," Male said via email. "This need was not immediately apparent leading up to the launch of the new equipment."

The city is in negotiations with a vendor to provide a new parking availability system, and will provide additional information as soon as an installation and launch date is scheduled, Male added.

This is the opinion of John Boyle. To submit a question, contact him at 232-5847 or jboyle@citizen-times.com

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Answer Man: Biltmore winter tickets limited? City parking app MIA?