Monticello

Title

Monticello

Artist

Greg Reed

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc.

Monticello is the autobiographical masterpiece of Thomas Jefferson�designed and redesigned and built and rebuilt for more than forty years�and its gardens were a botanic showpiece, a source of food, and an experimental laboratory of ornamental and useful plants from around the world.



For almost 90 years, Monticello has been maintained and kept open to the public by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc., which owns over 2,500 acres of Jefferson's 5,000-acre plantation. As a private, nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation, the Foundation receives no ongoing federal, state, or local funding in support of its dual mission of preservation and education.


The History Channel

The First Monticello

Born on April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson grew up at Shadwell, one of the largest tobacco plantations in Virginia. At the age of 21, he inherited several thousand acres of land that encompassed the family estate as well as his favorite boyhood haunt: a nearby hilltop called Monticello (Italian for �little mountain�) where he resolved to build his own home. In 1768, a year after the future president was admitted to the Virginia bar, workers broke ground on the site, beginning a decades-long process that would captivate Jefferson, bankrupt his family and produce one of America�s most iconic and historically significant architectural masterpieces.
Did You Know?

"I am as happy no where else and in no other society,� Thomas Jefferson once wrote, �and all my wishes end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello.�

In those days, it was common for landowners to choose a stock design for their home from an English architectural handbook; a contractor would then oversee the project from start to finish. But this particular landowner was Thomas Jefferson, the quintessential polymath, whose passions ranged from political philosophy, archaeology and linguistics to music, botany, bird watching and pasta making. (At a dinner honoring 49 American Nobel Prize winners, John F. Kennedy famously quipped, �I think that this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.�) Remembered for drafting the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson also drafted the blueprints for Monticello�s neoclassical mansion, outbuildings, gardens and grounds. Though he had no formal training, he had read extensively about architecture, particularly that of ancient Rome and the Italian Renaissance. Years later, he would become an accomplished architect whose designs included the Virginia state capitol and the main buildings at the University of Virginia.

Monticello was unique not only in its design but also in its use of local resources. At a time when most brick was still imported from England, Jefferson chose to mold and bake his own bricks with clay found on the property. Monticello�s grounds provided most of the lumber, stone and limestone, and even the nails used to construct the buildings were manufactured on site.

The Second Monticello

In 1770, the family house at Shadwell burned down, forcing Jefferson to move into Monticello�s South Pavilion, an outbuilding, until the main house was completed. Two years later, he was joined by his new bride, Martha Wayles Skelton, the 23-year-old widowed daughter of a prominent Virginia lawyer. The couple had six children together, two of whom lived to adulthood, before Martha�s death in 1782. Devastated by the loss of his wife, Jefferson moved to France, where he served as the U.S. ambassador from 1785 to 1789. He was immediately struck by the architecture of the buildings there, particularly a certain Paris home with a U-shaped design, colonnades and a domed roof. Along with a massive trove of art, furniture and books, he returned home with a new vision for the estate. Among other enhancements, he added a central hallway, a mezzanine bedroom floor and an octagonal dome�the first of its kind in the United States.

This �second Monticello� was double the size of its original incarnation, designed to accommodate not only Jefferson�s steady stream of houseguests but also his boundless collections of books, European art, Native American artifacts, natural specimens and mementos from his travels. Monticello was also filled with Jefferson�s unique�and often ingenious�inventions. These included a revolving bookstand, a copying machine, a spherical sundial and a toenail clipper, among dozens of other devices.

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November 13th, 2015

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