Twenty One Clear September Newsletter
Family business thoughts from the Biltmore and an update on my book(!!)
Hey there, and welcome to the September Newsletter. For the next few minutes, as you read, I hope you take a breath, ignore the rest of your inbox, and enjoy a rare chance to focus on the family business inside your company.
Thoughts from the Biltmore
If it has been a while since you had a family business meeting, or if you have not had one yet, the Vanderbilt Cecil family, owners of Biltmore, recently provided a reminder of why Q4 of this year is a good time to start.
From bankruptcy to better
The Biltmore Estate was almost a monumental family business failure, and now it is an example that your family business can learn from. What happened?
Step 1 - Stop company failure
“[In 1935], [f]ive years after the opening of Biltmore, George Washington Vanderbilt was running out of money. Suddenly, work stopped.” 1
This was the flawed beginning of the Biltmore Estate, as the Vanderbilt’s seemingly endless wealth proved finite. The situation got worse. By 1960, “[t]he business…was losing about $250,000 a year, and there was no money to keep up with repairs.” 2
A third-generation family member, William Vanderbilt, Sr., left his New York banking career to turn around the property. By 1968, Biltmore turned its first profit — $16.24. In the 1970s, William and his brother George divided the estate; William kept the house and property around it, and George took the dairy farm and land surrounding the estate, which he developed.
Step 1 completed - The family saved the Biltmore company.
Step 2 - Start the family business
Despite having a family-owned company and having family members on the company’s board of directors, the Vanderbilt Cecil family started dedicated family council endeavors around 2003, nearly 70 years after the house first opened to the public, and almost 200 years since Cornelius Vanderbilt ferried passengers in New York Bay. If you have not had a family business meeting this year, do not worry; just do not wait another generation (or three).
What is the difference between the Biltmore company and its inner family business?
The Biltmore company in 2016 reported revenues of $207 million. 2 It has an executive team, and Bill Cecil, its president and CEO, is the only family executive.
Their family council includes multiple generations of family members regardless of their employment status in the company. Instead of working on specific compensation polices, like Biltmore’s CHRO does, the family business creates governance like:
Family Employment Policy
Family Code of Conduct
Family Decision Making Authority
Family Vision Statement
You may have seen families do this work, only to let the policies and documents gather dust in a drawer somewhere.
What impressed me about the Vanderbilt Cecil family is that they use family meetings throughout the year to keep their work fresh and put it into practice.
For example, they have spun off multiple business lines from the core company, including some run by extended family members. These include a winery, investment management and jewelry.
However, each business or function has to fulfill the family vision of, “The preservation of Biltmore Estate as a privately owned, profitable working estate.” This simple statement prevents a lot of family fighting.
For instance, if a cousin expects family money to help him open a bowling alley in Dallas, the rest of the family knows he has to show how that ultimately benefits Biltmore Estate.
The clarity of their family business decisions has produced an admirable result - fifth-generation family members finding adjacent businesses that they love.
Aubrey, the daughter of Bill Cecil, Biltmore’s CEO, worked in the attractions division of the company. After a few years, she stepped out, with support, and founded Avermore, a jewelry company inspired by Biltmore. Their family business clarity allowed her to be an entrepreneur and also support the family business vision. This is one benefit of family business clarity — mutually beneficial entrepreneurship.
Your next step
Thankfully, the Vanderbilt Cecil family is honest; they did not create a well-run inner family business overnight. They started with bi-annual family meetings that grew into family councils, building their structures and processes.
As you get into Quarter 4, you may not have met with your family employees and family owners yet (or ever). Do not jump all the way to a family investment policy before Christmas. Instead, a good first step could be drafting an agenda for a January or February family meeting.
What is the purpose? Is it informative or collaborative?
Who should attend?
What might you discuss?
Even imagining this meeting is progress towards improving your inner family business.
Chaos Proof in “print”!!!
This morning, I printed the first manuscript copy of the book I am publishing in Q2 of 2026. As the printer whirred, I saw a year’s worth of work piling up on the tray.
When you work with your family, you want two things:
- To build a great company
- With a strong family around it
Why, then, does the opposite happen so often? And what can families do about that?
The book provides a framework for families who want to take their company to the next level and stay together as a family. The framework guides brave families willing to do the steady, consistent and emotional work to chaos proof their inner family business, like hosting family meetings.
I am excited to publish it next year and will continue to use the podcast and this newsletter to share the content along the way.
Till next month
I share a part of the family business framework in Episode 5 - How to Chaos Proof Family Hiring - Part 1. You can follow the show and download the episode here:
As my grandfather would have said, thank you so very, very much for reading.
Adam, for 21 Clear
Citations
1 - Fortune’s Children: The fall of the House of Vanderbilt, Arthur T. Vanderbilt, II
2- The Biltmore Company, Family Business Magazine, August 23, 2019