George Washington Vanderbilt II began to make regular visits with his mother Maria Louisa Kissam Vanderbilt to the Asheville area in the 1880s, at the height of the Gilded Age. He loved the scenery and climate so much that he decided to build a summer house in the area which he called his "little mountain escape". His older brothers and sisters had built luxurious summer houses in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, the Gold Coast of Long Island, and Hyde Park, New York.