Monticello Blog

From November through January 2015, our intrepid crew of archaeological field assistants, led by Field Research Manager Crystal Ptacek, explored the North Dependency, the enclosed space under the North Terrace, whose construction was completed around 1809.

This winter, as part of the exciting multi-year effort to restore Monticello to its appearance in Jefferson’s time, we are recreating a log dwelling that likely once housed members of the enslaved Hemings family.

Some time ago, while rooting around in the archives (looking for something else, as usual), I came across a newspaper clipping from the Charlottesville Daily Progress from 1966. It seems that NBC had just released its new pronunciation manual, which directed newscasters to pronounce Monticello "Monti-SELL-o."

Maintaining your garden in the summer months can require serious determination and stamina, especially here in Virginia where the high temperatures, humidity, mosquitos, ticks, and chiggers conspire to chase the well-meaning gardener indoors to relax in the air-conditioning with a nice cold glass of iced tea.

Thomas Jefferson, just thirty-two at the time, was in Philadelphia serving on the Continental Congress when he sat down to write this letter to his brother-in-law Francis Eppes. On 26 June 1775 – after hearing the first reports of what would later become known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The rose garden – a study of the history of rose breeding in North America –along with Léonie Bell’s legacy of collecting, preserving, identifying, and disseminating antique plants, represents the best in horticulture and the focus of the Center for Historic Plants.

Monticello is most famously known as Thomas Jefferson’s house. However, many people occupied its rooms, including Jefferson’s daughters, grandchildren and the enslaved.

While Jefferson could not have foreseen the technological advances that have resulted in many environmental issues today, he does express his thoughts on intergenerational obligations and the earth in his famous Rights of Usufruct and Future Generations.

This year, the Restoration Department concluded their research into the design of Monticello’s original exterior “Venetian” blinds. The search ultimately led them from Monticello to the U.S. Capitol.

Monticello has always been a work in progress, overflowing with Thomas Jefferson’s brilliance and complexity, his designs and experiments. For nearly a century, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has worked step by step to restore Monticello and its signature mountaintop landscape to the period of Jefferson’s retirement.