Monticello
- This is about the Jefferson residence. For other uses, see Monticello (disambiguation).
Monticello, located near Charlottesville, Virginia, was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, the third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia. The house is of Jefferson's own design and is situated on the summit of an 850-foot-high peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap. Monticello, in Italian, means "little mountain."
An image of the west front of Monticello was featured on the reverse of the 5 cent coin of the United States of America coined from 1938 to 2003 (the image returns to the reverse on the 2006 coin design) and on the reverse of the United States of America two dollar bill that was printed from 1928 to 1966.
Monticello was designated a World Heritage Site in 1987.
History
Work began on Monticello in 1768, and Jefferson moved into the South Pavilion (an outbuilding) in 1770. The original design was based on the classical style of Palladian architecture. When Jefferson left Monticello in 1784 for extended travels in Europe, the original design of the house was largely completed except for porticos and decorative interior woodwork. Upon his return, Jefferson expanded his vision for Monticello to incorporate features of Palladian buildings and ruins he admired overseas. Further work to the new design began in 1796. Construction of Monticello was substantially completed in 1809 with the erection of the dome.
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826 and Monticello was inherited by his eldest daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph. Financial difficulties led to Martha selling Monticello to James T. Barclay, a local apothecary, in 1831. Barclay sold it in 1834 to Uriah P. Levy, the first Jewish American to serve an entire career as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy. Levy greatly admired Jefferson. During the Civil War, the house was seized by the Confederate government and sold, though Uriah Levy's estate (he died in 1862) recovered it after the war.
Law suits filed by Levy's heirs were settled in 1879, when Uriah Levy's nephew, Jefferson Monroe Levy, a prominent New York lawyer, real estate and stock speculator and member of Congress, bought out the other heirs and took control of the property. Jefferson Levy, like his uncle, repaired, restored and preserved Monticello, which was deteriorating seriously while the law suits wended their way through the courts in New York and Virginia.
A private, nonprofit organization — the Thomas Jefferson Foundation — purchased the house from Jefferson Levy in 1923. Monticello is now operated as a museum and educational institution. Visitors can view rooms in the cellar and ground floor, but the 2nd and 3rd floors are not open to the general public.
Monticello is the only home in the United States of America that has been designated a World Heritage Site. From 1989 to 1992, a team of architects from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) painstakingly created a collection of measured drawings of Monticello. These drawings are now kept at the Library of Congress. The World Heritage Site designation also includes the original grounds of Jefferson's University of Virginia.
Among Jefferson's other designs are his other home near Lynchburg called Poplar Forest and the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond.
Decoration and furnishings
Much of Monticello's interior decoration reflect the ideas and ideals of Jefferson himself.
The original main entrance is through the portico on the east front. The ceiling of this portico incorporates a dial connected to a weather vane, showing the direction of the wind. A large clock face on the external east-facing wall has only an hour hand since Jefferson thought this was accurate enough for outdoor labourers. The clock reflects the time shown on the "Great Clock" (designed by Jefferson) in the entrance hall. The entrance hall contains articles collected by Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition. The floorcloth here is painted grass green, since Jefferson wanted it to feel as if he were still in the outdoors when he walked in the door.
The south wing includes Jefferson's private suite of rooms. The library holds many books in Jefferson's third library collection. His first library was burned in a plantation fire, and he donated his second library to Congress to replace the books burned by the British. This second library formed the nucleus of the Library of Congress. As famous and "larger than life" as Monticello seems, the house itself is actually no larger than a typical large home. Jefferson considered much furniture to be a waste of space, so the dining room table was erected only at mealtimes, and beds were built into alcoves cut into thick walls that contain storage space. Jefferson's bed opens to two sides: to his cabinet (study) and to his bedroom (dressing room).
The west front (illustration) gives the impression of a villa of very modest proportions, with a lower floor disguised in the hillside.
The north wing includes the dining room -- which has a dumbwaiter incorporated into the fireplace as well as dumbwaiters (shelved tables on castors) and a pivoting serving door with shelves -- and two guest bedrooms.
Outbuildings and plantation
The main house was augmented by small outlying pavilions to the north and south. A row of functional buildings (dairy, wash houses, store houses, a small nail factory, a joinery etc.) and slave dwellings known as Mulberry Row lay nearby to the south. A stone weaver's cottage survives, as does the tall chimney of the joinery, and the foundations of other buildings. A cabin on Mulberry Row was, for a time, the home of Sally Hemings; she later moved into a room in the "south dependency" below the main house. On the slope below Mulberry Row Jefferson maintained an extensive vegetable garden.
The house was the center of a plantation of 5,000 acres (20 km²), tended by some 150 slaves.
In 2004, the trustees acquired the only property that overlooks Monticello, the taller mountain that Jefferson called Montalto. Rushing to stave off development of so-called "McMansions," the trustees spent $15 million to purchase the property, which Jefferson had owned and which had served as a 20th Century residence to many University of Virginia students including George Allen (U.S. politician).
See also
References
Leepson, Marc, Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built, University of Virginia Press, 2003, ISBN-8139-2219-4[1]
External links
