Carolina Home + Garden / Spring 2011 / Obessessions: Biltmore Dairy Farms

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Obessessions: Biltmore Dairy Farms

Antique Dealer Larry Glenn has local history all bottled up

Antique dealer Larry Glenn is surrounded each day by curiosities and collectibles at the Smokey Park Antique Mall that he and his wife Gay own and operate in Candler. At home, he accumulates hunting and fishing items. But his personal collection of Biltmore Dairy Farms bottles and memorabilia is more than a casual group of beloved items — it’s an important record of fading local history.

For nearly 100 years, Biltmore Dairy Farms was a presence not only in Asheville, but across the South. While the dairy’s official start date has always been listed as 1897, Biltmore Estate historian Bill Alexander says George Vanderbilt purchased his first herd of dairy cattle in 1889, eventually importing valuable jersey cows to strengthen the bloodline. Records show the dairy first had orders for milk from local hotels such as the Kenilworth Inn and the Swannanoa Hotel. The main dairy (housed in what’s now the Biltmore Winery) was built between 1900 and 1902 and became the center of the operation. While other agricultural businesses on the estate tapered off (there were once large-scale vegetable gardens, poultry, hog and sheep farming and even a butchery), the dairy continued to grow, delivering milk first by horse-drawn wagons and later in distinctive trucks.

The dairy experienced different periods of growth, expanding first in the 1930s with new barns and bigger herds that were considered to be, says Alexander, “the finest jersey cattle in North America.” Biltmore Farms opened its first off-estate distribution depot and office in 1931 and then its first off-site bottling plant in Charlotte in 1935, when a trip to the Queen City took five hours one way through Hickory Nut Gorge. With the opening of the new bottling-plant complex and associated Dairy Bar in 1957 near Biltmore Village, Biltmore Farms entered another new era: customers could enjoy ice cream made right on site. (Before Biltmore Dairy Bar opened, the public could taste and purchase Biltmore ice cream at the Creamery, where it was made on the main estate.)

But by the early ‘80s, the dairy was feeling the effects of a rapidly changing industry: supermarkets were producing and packaging their own brands and big, national dairy companies were buying up smaller operations. In 1985, the company was sold to Pet Dairy, who bought the assets and ceased production. The DoubleTree Hotel sits on the site of the old bottling plant and Dairy Bar, and its lobby features an extensive display of Biltmore Farms memorabilia. Glenn’s own collection is probably the largest not owned by a branch of Biltmore Farms.

Glenn arrived relatively late to his obsession. A native of South Carolina, he worked for many years in the food and beverage transportation business. He found his first Biltmore piece—a neon Dairy sign—about 25 years ago while driving by a soon-to-be-closed country store in Swannanoa. The owner was clearing out the store, and Glenn was lucky enough to walk away with the sign. One collectible led to another, and soon his Biltmore Dairy collection grew to include all kinds of memorabilia, from hats worn by the “route men” to toy “bank trucks,” nightlights and clocks. He even has a toy gun and holster with the Biltmore logo that was given away during a campy promotion in the ‘50s (delivery drivers were required to dress up as cowboys), and a Biltmore Dairy promotional baseball bat from an Asheville Tourists’ Bat Day during the early ‘80s.

Glenn says his most valuable item is still the very first thing he picked up: that neon sign, which is probably worth $1500 at auction now. His most surprising find was a Biltmore Farms promotional Frisbee he happened upon in the woods behind his house. He tends not to keep duplicates of the same type of item, noting, “It’s more about quality than quantity.”

The bottles that make up the bulk of Glenn’s collection range from smaller baby milk bottles to standard-size bottles (the kind that would have been delivered to homes) to glass creamers given to restaurants that used Biltmore Farms as a vendor. Early bottles — generally from the 1930s — had the logo embossed onto the glass. They are relatively easy to find, available on eBay for under $10. Bottles from the 1940s and ‘50s, an era when the logo was painted on, are more rare, says Glenn. “When the bottles were thrown away, the paint chipped off, so it’s hard to find them with the paint intact.” Painted-label bottles can go for $100 on up at auction, and even bottle caps from the 1920s have been listed at up to $100. Colored glass bottles are also rare, having been produced only for a short period in the ‘60s when the color was thought to preserve the nutrients in the milk.

Glenn says interest in Biltmore Dairy bottles and memorabilia isn’t limited to North Carolina. He’s sold pieces to collectors as far away as Texas. He will eventually sell the whole collection, he reveals. But in the meantime, if you happen to have any items from that nostalgia-fortified local institution, he’ll be happy to take a look.