An estate of central Virginia southeast of Charlottesville. Designed by Thomas Jefferson, it was begun in 1770 and was his home for 56 years. Owned by other families from shortly after Jefferson's death until 1923, it is now a national shrine.
Monticello
Dictionary:
Mon·ti·cel·lo (mŏn'tĭ-chĕl'ō, -sĕl'ō)  |
An estate of central Virginia southeast of Charlottesville. Designed by Thomas Jefferson, it was begun in 1770 and was his home for 56 years. Owned by other families from shortly after Jefferson's death until 1923, it is now a national shrine.
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| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Monticello |
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| Archaeology Dictionary: Monticello, Virginia, USA |
[Si]
Earthen mound situated beside the Rivanna River excavated by Thomas Jefferson in 1782 and important as the first documented archaeological excavation in North America. Jefferson's investigation had the aim of shedding light on a then current controversy about who the ‘mound builders’ of the Mississippi area were: ancestors of the aboriginal Indians, Toltec Indians from Mexico, or even cultures from further afield (the Welsh and a variety of ‘lost races’ were seriously suggested). Jefferson confirmed that the mounds were repositories for the dead and that associated with the burials were artefacts similar to items of Indian origin.
[Rep.: T. Jefferson, 1797, Notes on the State of Virginia. London: Stockdale]
| US History Encyclopedia: Monticello |
Monticello (constructed between 1769 and 1809) was designed and built by Thomas Jefferson to be his home, farm, and plantation. Construction progressed through two stages, the first beginning in 1769, and the second in 1796, after Jefferson's presidency and travels in Europe.
Altered throughout most of Jefferson's life, the brick house embodies the ideals of the American Enlightenment, as well as the moral, aesthetic, political, and scientific motives of its designer. Located southwest of Charlottesville, Virginia, and surrounded by thousands of acres devoted to agriculture and industry, the house was built on the leveled summit of "Little Mountain." More than one hundred enslaved African Americans and paid laborers supported the cultivation of elaborate vegetable gardens, a variety of crops and livestock, fruit trees, a vineyard, and a terraced, picturesque garden. Twenty-six years old when Monticello was begun, Jefferson pursued an urbane, aristocratic, and educated life in this rural setting, where he was inspired by his study of ancient Roman architecture, the writings of Pliny, and the neoclassical villa architecture of Andrea Palladio. The orderly landscape, carefully arranged shops and outbuildings, and the balanced planning of Monticello's interior spaces demonstrated Jefferson's belief that architecture must be both practical and symbolic, a visible instrument of a new nation's purposes. Monticello reflects both the private country gentleman's family and the plantation's social structure.
Choosing the scenic mountaintop for his plantation house, Jefferson made clear his understanding of how a house and its natural landscape interact. From 1768 onward, Jefferson worked out the plan, elevations, materials, and details of his house in numerous ink on laid paper drawings. By 1770, the site was cleared, lumber was prepared, and bricks were made to build a small brick house (still standing), shaped after regional vernacular buildings. By 1771, the general plan of the main house and its dependencies had been drawn, derived from typical plans for country villas in Robert Morris's Select Architecture (1757), an illustrated volume in Jefferson's substantial collection of architecture books. Monticello's cruciform plan, balanced proportions, and classical ornamental details demonstrate Jefferson's familiarity with the prevailing architectural aesthetic derived from the sixteenth-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio. Seeking constant refinements and originality, the eclectic Jefferson combined his own sense of practicality and beauty with Palladio's use of the Doric and Ionic orders, pedimented roofs, and classical proportions, all of which Jefferson had studied in Palladio's Four Books of Architecture (1570). This earliest phase of Monticello featured a double portico, one of Palladio's most well known classical elements.
For classical details, Jefferson turned to James Gibbs's Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture (1738). The classical Roman villa and the cultivated lifestyle of its inhabitants occupied Jefferson's imagination, fostered as well by his study of Pliny, whose description of ancient Roman interiors, cultivated landscapes, and villa architecture informed American Palladianism. Jefferson brought his wife to Monticello in 1772, and the house's construction continued for the next ten years under the direct supervision of its architect. In designing the various public and private spaces, Jefferson unified beauty and function. The untimely death of his wife in 1782, and Jefferson's departure to Paris in 1784, ended this first phase of construction.
In France, Jefferson immersed himself in French neoclassical studies, acquired important architecture books, and visited ancient Roman sites in France and Italy. His fascination with numbers and precise measurement is reflected in his writings and travel sketches. The authentic Roman buildings tempered Jefferson's attachment to Palladio and, for solving the practical household needs at Monticello, Jefferson also carefully studied French domestic architecture. In particular, he was impressed by the Hotel de Salm, a modern townhouse combining neoclassical order and modern rational planning. When Jefferson resumed construction at Monticello in 1796, the second phase of design showed dramatically the impact of Roman antiquity, Palladio's villas, French neoclassicism, and his visits to English country houses, especially Lord Burlington's Chiswick House (1725) near London. Palladio's Villa Rotunda, near Vicenza, was memorable for its centralized plan and dome. Monticello's two-story portico was replaced by a low octagonal dome, and the dependencies were drawn horizontally across the site to emphasize the much-desired view of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains. Monticello was mostly finished by 1809, when Jefferson retired from his public life, but Jefferson continued to tinker with his dwelling until his death in 1826.
Bibliography
Burstein, Andrew. The Inner Jefferson: Portrait of a Grieving Optimist. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.
Cunningham, Noble E., Jr. In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.
Guinness, Desmond, and Julius Trousdale Sadler, Jr. Mr. Jefferson, Architect. New York: Viking, 1973.
Kimball, Fiske. Thomas Jefferson, Architect: Original Designs in the Coolidge Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society. New York: DaCapo, 1968.
McLaughlin, Jack. Jefferson and Monticello: The Biography of a Builder. New York: Holt, 1988.
Stein, Susan R. The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. New York: Abrams, 1993.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Monticello |
Monticello (mŏn'tĭsĕl'ō, -chĕl'ō) [Ital.,=little mountain], estate, 640 acres (259 hectares), central Va., near Charlottesville; home of Thomas Jefferson for 56 years. The mansion, which he designed, was begun in 1770 on property inherited from his father. The building materials-stone, brick, lumber, and nails-were prepared on the estate, and most of the construction work was carried out by Jefferson's artisan slaves. By 1772, when Jefferson took his bride there to live, part of the house was ready for occupancy; for many years afterward, he added to the building. The house is one of the earliest examples of the American classic revival. Not long after Jefferson's death, his daughter, unable to maintain the property, sold it, retaining only the family burial plot in which Jefferson is interred. Monticello was later bought by Uriah P. Levy, a naval officer, who bequeathed it to "the people of the United States"; but his heirs successfully contested the will. By 1879, Jefferson M. Levy was in full ownership, but he sold Monticello in 1923 to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. Dedicated as a national shrine in 1926, and extensively renovated during the next 30 years, the estate was opened to the public in 1954.
| Fine Arts Dictionary: Monticello |
(mon-tuh-chel-oh, mon-tuh-sel-oh)Monticello appears on the back (“tails” side) of the nickel; Jefferson's head is on the front.
The home of Thomas Jefferson, in central Virginia. The mansion at Monticello, designed by Jefferson himself, is a notable example of the use of ancient forms, such as the dome, in the architecture of his time.
| Gardener's Dictionary: Monticello |
The home of Thomas Jefferson near Charlottesville, Virginia. The gardens he designed and documented in his “Garden Book” included a 1,000-foot-long vegetable plot. Much of the site has been restored according to his notes, and today the plantings feature both flowers and vegetables grown before 1826.
| Wikipedia: Monticello |
This is about the Jefferson residence. For other uses, see Monticello (disambiguation).
| Monticello | |
 Monticello
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| Location: | Charlottesville, Virginia |
| Coordinates: | 38°0′30″N 78°27′12″W / 38.00833°N 78.45333°W |
| Built: | 1772 |
| Architect: | Thomas Jefferson |
| Architectural style(s): | Neoclassical |
| Governing body: | The Thomas Jefferson Foundation |
| UNESCO World Heritage Site | |
| Official name: Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville | |
| Type: | Cultural |
| Criteria: | i, iv, vi |
| Designated: | 1987 (11th session) |
| Reference #: | 442 |
| Region: | Europe and North America |
| U.S. National Register of Historic Places | |
| Designated: | October 15, 1966[1] |
| Reference #: | 66000826 |
| U.S. National Historic Landmark | |
| Designated: | December 19, 1960[2] |
  Location of Monticello in Virginia
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Monticello (pronounced /mɑntəˈtʃɛloʊ/), located in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia.
The house, which Jefferson himself designed, was based on the neoclassical principles described in the books of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. It is situated on the summit of an 850-foot (260 m)-high peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap. Its name comes from the Italian "little mountain."
An image of the west front of Monticello by Felix Schlag has been featured on the reverse of the nickel minted since 1938 (with a brief interruption in 2004 and 2005, when designs of the Westward Journey series appeared instead).
Monticello also appeared on the reverse of the two-dollar bill from 1929 to 1966, when the bill was discontinued. The current bill was introduced in 1976 and retains Jefferson's portrait on the obverse but replaced Monticello on the reverse with an engraved modified reproduction of John Trumbull's painting Declaration of Independence instead. The gift shop at Monticello hands out two-dollar bills as change.
Monticello, along with the nearby University of Virginia, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
Contents |
History
Work began on what historians would subsequently refer to as "the first Monticello" in 1768. Jefferson moved into the South Pavilion (an outbuilding) in 1770. Jefferson left Monticello in 1784 to serve as Minister of the United States to France. During his tenure in Europe, he had an opportunity to see some of the classical buildings with which he had become acquainted from his reading, as well as to discover the "modern" trends in French architecture that were then fashionable in Paris. His decision to remodel his own home may date from this period. In 1794, following his service as the first U.S. Secretary of State (1790-93), Jefferson began rebuilding his house based on the ideas he had acquired in Europe. The remodeling continued throughout most of his presidency (1801-09).
Thomas Jefferson added a center hallway and a parallel set of rooms to the structure, more than doubling its area. He removed the second full-height story from the original house and replaced it with a mezzanine bedroom floor. The most dramatic element of the new design was an octagonal dome, which he placed above the West front of the building in place of a second-story portico. The room inside the dome was described by a visitor as "a noble and beautiful apartment," but it was rarely used—perhaps because it was hot in summer and cold in winter, or because it could only be reached by climbing a steep and very narrow flight of stairs. The dome room has now been restored to its appearance during Jefferson's lifetime, with "Mars yellow" walls and a painted green floor.[3]
Thomas 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 American Civil War, the house was seized by the Confederate government and sold, though Uriah Levy's estate recovered it after the war.
Lawsuits 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 lawsuits wended their way through the courts in New York and Virginia.
A private non-profit organization, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, purchased the house from Jefferson Levy in 1923 with funds raised by Theodore Fred Kuper and it was restored by architects including Fiske Kimball and Milton L. Grigg.[4] Monticello is now operated as a museum and educational institution. Visitors can view rooms in the cellar and ground floor, but the second and third floors are not open to the general public due to fire code restrictions.
Monticello is the only private home in the United States 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
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) |
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 wind plate 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 laborers. The clock reflects the time shown on the "Great Clock", designed by Jefferson, in the entrance hall. The entrance hall contains recreations of items collected by Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition. The floorcloth here is painted a "true grass green" upon the recommendation of artist Gilbert Stuart in order for Jefferson's 'essay in architecture' to invite the spirit of the outdoors into the house.
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 'ceded' (or sold) his second library in 1815 to the United States Congress to replace the books host when the British burned the Capitol in 1814. 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 (2,000 ha) tended by some 150 slaves. There are also two houses included in the whole.
In 2004, the trustees acquired the only property that overlooks Monticello, the taller mountain that Jefferson called Montalto, but known to Charlottesville residents as Mountaintop Farm, Patterson's or Brown's Mountain. Rushing to stave off development of new homes, the trustees spent $15 million to purchase the property, which Jefferson had owned and which had served as a 20th-century residence as farm houses divided into apartments for many University of Virginia students (including George Allen). The officials at Monticello had long viewed the property located on the mountain as an eyesore, and were very interested in purchasing the property when it came on the market.[5] Monticello now charges $20 for adults and $7 for children to visit the top of the mountain and only allows admission to the area from May to October.[6]
Miscellaneous
Monticello was featured in Bob Vila's A&E Network production, Guide to Historic Homes of America,[7] in a tour which included the Dome Room, which is only open to the public during a limited number of tours each year, and Honeymoon Cottage.
Sidney Fiske Kimball, father of the University of Virginia's School of Architecture, and one of the prime movers behind the restoration of Monticello, and author of the book Thomas Jefferson, Architect, used Jefferson's architectural principles to build his own retirement home outside Charlottesville called "Shack Mountain," short for Shackelford Mountain, the surname of a branch of Jefferson's descendants. Built in 1935-1936, Shack Mountain is a Jefferson-style pavilion, like Monticello, that is considered Kimball's masterpiece.[8][9] Kimball himself advised on the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and Stratford Hall Plantation. Shack Mountain was nominated as a National Historic Landmark in 1992.[10]
Replicas
The entrance pavilion of the Naval Academy Jewish Chapel at Annapolis is modeled on Monticello.
See also
- Monticello Association
- Poplar Forest, Mr. Jefferson's private retreat.
References
- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2006-03-15. http://www.nr.nps.gov/.
- ^ "Monticello (Thomas Jefferson House)". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=632&ResourceType=Building. Retrieved 2008-06-27.
- ^ Kern, Chris. "Jefferson's Dome at Monticello". http://www.ChrisKern.Net/essay/jeffersonsDomeAtMonticello.html. Retrieved 2009-07-10.
- ^ Fleming, Thomas. "The Jew Who Helped Save Monticello." The Jewish Digest. February 1974: 43-49.
- ^ "The Hook - Off Montalto, "It's all downhill from here."". 2004-06-03. http://www.readthehook.com/Stories/2004/06/03/newsOffMontaltoquotitsAllD.html.
- ^ "Jeffersons's Monticello: Getting Tickets". 2007-02-17. http://www.monticello.org/visit/getting_tickets.html.
- ^ Bob Vila (1996). ""Guide to Historic Homes of America."" (html). A&E Network. http://www.bobvila.com/BVTV/AE/America.html.
- ^ The Virginia Landmarks Register, By Calder Loth, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, Published by University of Virginia Press, 1999, ISBN 0813918626
- ^ The Architecture of Jefferson Country: Charlottesville and Albemarle County, K. Edward Lay, University of Virginia Press, 2000
- ^ Fiske Kimball, Shack Mountain, University of Virginia library, lib.virginia.edu
Further reading
- 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
- Mc Laughlin, Jack, "Jefferson and Monticello, The Biography of a Builder", Holt, 1988.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Monticello |
- Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, official site
- Monticello's Shadows, City Journal, Autumn 2007
- World Heritage Nomination
- The Monticello Explorer, an interactive multimedia look at the house
- Thomas Jefferson Wiki
- HABS drawing
- Monticello Association of Jefferson lineal descendants
- "Moving a mountain: How Monticello got Montalto back" — article in The Hook
- Monticello restoration and Milton Grigg
- Tour Experience of Monticello
- Jefferson's Dome at Monticello
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Coordinates: 38°00′32″N 78°27′11″W / 38.00889°N 78.45306°W
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Mentioned in
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