Hallmark is filming a new Christmas movie at an NC landmark. What we know.

Asheville’s Biltmore Estate will be the setting of a new Hallmark Christmas movie scheduled to premiere next year.

The news was first reported by Variety.

Production on the movie, titled “A Biltmore Christmas,” is set to begin next month, Variety reported.

The movie is not yet listed on the North Carolina Film Office website, but will film entirely on the Biltmore Estate, says Variety.

The estate, built by George Vanderbilt, has always had strong Christmas vibes. Construction started in 1889 and was first opened to Vanderbilt friends and family on Christmas Eve in 1895, according to the Biltmore Estate. A major tourist attraction year-round, the estate is especially popular during Christmas, when it is decked to the hilt with holiday trim.

Hallmark isn’t the first to film at the Biltmore Estate.

Among the most significant Biltmore-filmed movies is “Being There,” a highly acclaimed 1979 dark comedy starring Peter Sellers and Melvyn Douglas. Douglas won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film, and Sellers was nominated for Best Actor. The Biltmore house is the grand estate belonging to Douglas’ character, where Sellers’ character recovers after an accident.

Why Biltmore is perfect for Hallmark

Here are just a few facts about the North Carolina landmark, courtesy of the Biltmore Estate, that demonstrate why it’s a perfect Hallmark setting.

▪ The house is huge: The mansion itself is 175,000 square feet (about four acres of floor space) with 250 rooms: 35 bedrooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.

▪ The house is fancy: On display inside the French Renaissance chateau is the Vanderbilt family’s original collection of art and furniture.

▪ The grounds are massive: The mansion sits on 8,000 acres of land (125,000 acres when Vanderbilt first owned it, but parts were sold to the US government to establish Pisgah National Forest).

▪ The gardens are extraordinary: Of the current 8,000 acres, 75 of those are formal and informal gardens designed by renowned American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

▪ It has its own winery: The estate also boasts its own winery, thanks to the foresight of George Vanderbilt’s grandson, William A.V. Cecil, who began planting grapevines in the early 1970s. Biltmore’s Winery was established in 1985.

What we know about ‘A Biltmore Christmas’ Hallmark movie

The movie will star Bethany Joy Lenz and Kristoffer Polaha. Lenz’s character is named Lucy Collins, and Polaha’s character is Jack Huston.

The plot of the movie, from Variety: Lucy Collins is a screenwriter hired to remake a beloved classic holiday movie that was filmed in 1947 at the Biltmore Estate. She goes to Biltmore to do research and is drawn to a beautiful hourglass inside the house. She accidentally knocks it over and is transported back in time to 1946, during the filming of “His Merry Bride.” The star of the 1946 film is Jack Huston, who is drawn to Lucy and the two eventually fall in love. But her presence in the past threatens the production of the movie, and she make things right or “threaten to alter the future forever.” As for the love story: “Lucy has one chance to go home but must say goodbye to the man who might be her soulmate unless some Christmas magic can keep the curtain from closing on their love story.”

V fans will know Lenz from “One Tree Hill” and from other Hallmark movies: “Poinsettias for Christmas,” “Royal Matchmaker,” “Five Star Christmas,” “A Valentine’s Match” and “An Unexpected Christmas.”

Polaha is very familiar to Hallmark fans. He has been in seven Hallmark movies and is a star of the seven-part Hallmark Movies & Mysteries film series “Mystery 101.”