Marvelling at Monticello

While in Virginia, Linda and I visited Monticello, the hilltop home of Thomas Jefferson. This home took a lifetime to refine but, in its conclusion, is a fascinating expression of his vision. There's a lot to be told about this home and how Mr. Jefferson made it work; I'll share a little.

When you arrive at the visitor parking for the property, you're actually only part way up the hill. You get your ticket and a time to catch the shuttle to the house itself. This serves at least two purposes: they don't let you get a free peek at the house and it keeps the arriving groups to a manageable size; something we appreciated.

We did get to tour the interior of the home but photos were not allowed. The Jefferson's Monticello website has a floor plan and room by room tour with photos.

One of the interesting features of the house is the cabinet and bedroom. If you click the link and look at the image, you can see Jefferson's bed with a red spread. That bed is actually built in the wall between the cabinet and his bedroom. Depending on which way he rolled out of bed, he'd be ready to dress for the day or practically at his desk.

The home has several other interesting features that don't really show in the images on the website. There was a bottle sized dumbwaiter from the wine cellar to a sitting room. Between the main hall and dining space, Jefferson engineered a chain and sprocket mechanism that connected the double doors so that opening or closing one moved the other too. It was a house well considered.

This view is what I'd call the back door. When we arrived, we were let out on the other side of the building. While that would probably be considered the main entrance, I don't think it's any more impressive and my photo from that side included the back sides of people ahead of me so I'll not include it. This lawn is surrounded by a walking path lined with low flower gardens. It's easy to imagine it being a play space for children or space to stroll and talk with friends.

If you look closely in the photo above, you can see while rails extended from both sides of the house. Those are the walkways seen in the left half of this image. Beneath those walkways is the tunnel seen in the right half of this image. This tunnel provided all season access for the hired workers and slaves that worked around the house. Directly below the main house were Jefferson's beer and wine storage as well as work spaces for the house slaves.

At the ends of the tunnel, you have the "dependencies," the larger work spaces. These included the main kitchen and cooks quarters, the smokehouse, and the stable and carriage storage. It's easy to imagine these spaces bustling with people working quite comfortably while Jefferson strolled with dignitaries on that lawn space just above, each largely oblivious of the other. As you can see in this image, there's another walkway above these work areas. At the end of each is a fairly large office type room. The northern space served for some time as the office for Jefferson's son-in-law. The southern was actually Jefferson's home while the rest of the property was being developed.

Mr. Jefferson also used his plantation to experiment with various methods of gardening. He kept very precise records regarding his plants and engineered special spaces in his gardens to produce the most favorable conditions for them to thrive. The Jefferson's Monticello website has a complete section covering the many aspects of Mr. Jefferson's passion for the garden and agriculture of his day. It's pretty amazing that he could keep track of it all, have a vision for how to take the next step, and be able to appreciate the literal fruit of that labor.

That's a lot to try to put together spatially. Click here to see an overview map of the garden, house, dependencies, and walking path I've mentioned.

I'm glad that people have found it worthwhile to restore and maintain a property like Monticello. It a great insight into a fascinating mind, well worth the stop.