Completed in 1809, the South Terrace is the upper level of the South Wing and connects Jefferson’s private suite of rooms in the main house to the South Pavilion and, via stairs, to both the West and East Lawns.
One of Jefferson's drawings of the first version of Monticello, c.1771Thomas Jefferson was a self-taught architect inspired by Andrea Palladio’s’ books about the classical architecture of ancient Greece and Rome and by the neoclassical architecture he saw in late 18th-century Paris.
Jefferson’s design for Monticello evolved from a two story, eight room house, unfinished when he travelled to Paris, to the three story, thirty-three room house we know today as the house on the back of the nickel. Built by a combination of free white and enslaved African American craftsmen, Monticello is Jefferson’s self-described “essay in architecture.”
Length: 110’ /Width = 97’ 9” (Portico to Portico) / Height = 44’ 7” (Ground to Oculus)
Living Space: 10, 660 SQFT
Ceiling Heights
Number of Rooms:
Lighting and Heating
Classical Orders of Architecture
Construction Timeline
1768: Mountaintop levelled
1769-1782: 2 story, 8 room “Monticello I” constructed
1796-1809: 3 story, 33 room “Monticello II” completed
Building Materials
Builders
Cost of Monticello
Late in life, Jefferson designed the University of Virginia, once again drawing on classical and neoclassical architecture to create an “Academical Village” to educate American citizens as the heirs of the ideals of Republican Rome.
In 1987, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recognized the University of Virginia and Monticello as a World Heritage Sites as “excellent and highly personalized examples of Neoclassicism.”
Monticello is the only U.S. presidential and private home on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The designation’s “Statement of Significance” details Thomas Jefferson’s architectural ingenuity and use of neo-classical elements in creating both Monticello and the University of Virginia. The committee also took note of how Jefferson’s architecture symbolizes the ideals of the enlightenment and the awareness of Monticello’s natural surroundings in its construction.
Learn more about Monticello's standing as World Heritage Site »
Slavery in the Western Hemisphere developed throughout the colonial period. While slavery has existed throughout world history, and still exists in parts of the world today, slavery at Monticello and in the Western Hemisphere was uniquely based on the concept of race. The Transatlantic Slave Trade forcibly removed an estimated 12 million people from West Africa to the Americas, creating a system of exploitation of human beings justified by denying their humanity because of the color of their skin.
The Monticello plantation is a microcosm of the problem of slavery and the struggles, tragedies, and triumphs of African Americans once held bondage.
The names of many enslaved workers are only preserved in Jefferson's Farm Book.It may never be possible to know the total number, but we know the Monticello plantation was home to several hundred enslaved African Americans. Jefferson’s precise and meticulously preserved records document the enslaved people he owned but the records of other slaveowners at Monticello were not as well preserved.
Thomas Jefferson enslaved over six hundred people, four hundred of whom lived here, but other free whites who lived at Monticello also held African Americans in bondage, including members of Jefferson’s extended family, hired workmen, overseers, many long-term visitors, and later owners.
Interior of a reconstructed home for enslaved workers along Monticello's Mulberry Row.The enslaved community at Monticello were all descended from people from Africa. Many of them also had European ancestry, and some had Indigenous American ancestry.
A new African American culture developed in this environment, and much of American culture today, from music to worship, foodways, language, agriculture, architecture, and kinship, reflects the incorporation of old and new traditions to help retain dignity and affirm identity to survive and triumph over the cruelties of slavery.
The histories of Monticello’s enslaved community serve as a powerful lens through which people can better understand these complicated aspects of our shared pasts, and in so doing learn more about the legacies that remain today.
Artifacts discovered during excavations on Monticello's Mulberry Row in the 1980s.Our knowledge of slavery at Monticello comes from a variety of sources, including written records, oral history, and archaeology.
Archaeology with a focus beyond architecture began in 1979. This ongoing work has uncovered thousands of artifacts that help to better understand the lives of the enslaved African American people who lived and labored here.
From tools of agriculture and trade to personal objects, archaeological research reveals much about the humanity of Monticello’s enslaved community, enhancing our understanding of their lives beyond that contained in written records and oral history. Much of this information is available on the Monticello website, and more can be learned at the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS), an archaeological research project based at Monticello.
The Getting Word oral history project began in 1993, when Monticello historians began preserving the histories of the African American families enslaved at Monticello. To date, over 100 interviews with descendants of those enslaved at Monticello, combined with archival research, have revealed remarkable stories of people whose lives and achievement were all but erased over the last 200 years.
Learn more about the individuals who lived in slavery at Monticello and their descendants through the stops on this tour, on our website, and through our partner projects.