Monticello

Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s mountaintop home near Charlottesville, was both a plantation worked through the forced labor of enslaved Black people and a lifelong architectural experiment. Built on land he inherited from his father, the estate once covered 5,000 acres and evolved over decades as Jefferson revised the house with neoclassical and French influences, adding features such as a central hall and octagonal dome. Mulberry Row formed the plantation’s working core, with workshops and quarters for enslaved domestic workers. After Jefferson’s death in 1826, debt forced the estate’s sale, but later owners helped preserve it. Since 1923 it has been maintained as a museum and educational institution.

Virginia · United States