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"I am as happy nowhere else and in no other society, and all my wishes
end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello,\" wrote Thomas Jefferson
the great architect of his home, Monticello. His home of 54 years was named
Monticello which means \"little mountain\" in Italian. Many still
question the reasoning for the name \"Monticello.\" The only
reasoning that was come up with was that Jefferson wanted to build his home on
his mountain located in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia near
Charlottesville. He wanted a place that was private and away from civilization
and the commotion of politics.
Thomas Jefferson became his own master builder on this land that he inherited
from his father, Peter Jefferson. When his father died he left five thousand
acres and more than twenty slaves to Thomas and his younger brother Randolph.
The land would include the little 867 foot wooded mountain that would one day
be called \"Monticello.\" In 1767 Jefferson did the unheard thing to
do in colonial America, he decided to build his dream home on the mountaintop.
There were no highways or rivers on the land he built his home and people
thought he was crazy and unpractical for doing this.
Architecture, as a profession, did not exist in colonial America. Only the
wealthy men of the South were to have some knowledge of architectural styles.
Finally gentlemen farmers and merchants were able to create plans and pictures
of their dream houses by combining their skills. They were then able to become
what was known as amateur architects.
Jefferson started his construction of Monticello by leveling his mountaintop
and setting down on paper sketchy visions of the house. He then prepared the
mechanical working drawings, which he taught himself to do. The materials
needed to construct Monticello were found in the area. He used his own trees
for timber and took stone blocks for the foundation out of his mountain. The bricks
were even fired in Monticello\'s own mountaintop kiln. He studied
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the crafts of stonecutting, brick making and carpentry to carry out the work of
construction. The only things he had to get elsewhere were the intricate
fittings like brass locks and doorknobs or glass.
Slowly but surely Jefferson finished a small brick building, which was the
south pavilion, in 1770. Later the north pavilion was finished and served as a
study for his son-in-law. These buildings were separate from the house at the
time but eventually were connected to it by raised wood walkways or platforms
called \"terraces.\" These terraces were to be roofed over and were
to hide the service areas from the main house. These service areas were called
\"dependencies\". The slave quarters, the kitchen and a smokehouse
for curing and preserving meats were located in the south dependencies located
beneath the south terrace. The north dependencies were where the stables,
carriage houses, an icehouse, and a laundry were located. These L-shaped
terrace links between the main house and the north and south pavilions were not
fully completed until after 1800.
In 1774 the center section of the mansion and its south wing had been
completed. What now emerged as an elegant building in Jefferson\'s design was a
two-story home whose central section contained a front hall, parlor and
upstairs library. Also a double-decked portico or two colonnaded porches capped
by a triangular pediment. When you entered the hall from the mansion\'s east
front, the master bedroom was on the left, and the dining room was on the
right. Jefferson\'s bedroom was pretty unique in design. His bed was built in
between his study and his bedroom so he could step from the bed to either room
at any time. The whole mansion\'s design was inspired by the works of Andrea
Palladio. He was a 16th century Italian architect who had studied the
architectural styles of ancient Rome, and his architectural styles became known
as the \"Palladian\" style. Jefferson used Palladio\'s U-shape design
for Monticello.
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There were many sights that Jefferson had seen in Europe that made him question
the appearance of Monticello. For one thing, country homes in America did not
have multiple stories but city houses did. There was more room in the country
to spread out where city houses
had to be stacked and cramped. Jefferson then realized his lack of spreading
out Monticello. He believed it should reach outward not upward and he wanted it
larger. He also wanted to combine the ancient classical buildings in Monticello
that he was able to view in Europe. Among these buildings were the Maison
Carree in Nimes, the Hotel de Salm in France, and the Roman Pantheon in Rome.
The Roman Pantheon was also an inspiration to Palladio. So in 1789, when
Jefferson became secretary of state, he decided to completely remodel
Monticello. He believed it looked \"clumsy, old-fashioned and out of step
with what a modern country home should look like.\" Jefferson once said,
\"Architecture is my delight, and putting up and pulling down is one of my
favorite amusements.\" Jefferson decided to make Monticello much larger
and to have all of the rooms on one floor and make it seem to be one-story when
it was actually three floors. He would pull down Monticello\'s upper portico,
which gave the entire structure a lower appearance, and he would then provide
the center section of the home with a dome. It would be the first on an
American home. The dome and colonnaded porch were among those architectural
features that connected Jefferson with Palladio and to the classical building
design. Finally in 1809, Monticello was finished and is the mansion that is
known today. Jefferson made sure that he took up as little space as possible
with items like stairs because he wanted to show off his inventions, collection
of Indian artifacts and natural history such as antlers, a buffalo head, and
mastodon tusks. He believed space should be used economically.
Jefferson had many inventions displayed around Monticello. An example of one of
his inventions was an hour clock, placed over the main entry doors of the
entrance hall that
connected to a seven-day calendar run by weights. The weights were actually
Revolutionary War cannon balls. \"The weights moved with the clock\'s
ticking and controlled the gong on the
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roof that struck hourly.\" The days of the week were indicated by the
movement of the weights, which passed by marks on the wall for Sunday through
Friday. Jefferson did forget about Saturday and had to have the cannon balls
pass through holes in the floor to reach Saturday marked on the wall of a
recreation room below. Another invention Jefferson had in the house was a
rotating pantry door that had shelves built on it to hold dishes with food. The
servants would place the food on the shelves and rotate the door so that the
food would be in the dining room. Jefferson also had in the dining room,
dumbwaiters that were built into the sides of the fireplace. These dumbwaiters
were mechanical lifts for sending wine bottles up from the cellar beneath the
dining room. In the entrance hall he had a set of doors, that were separately
hung and free-swinging, that opened and closed in automatic harmony. People
were mystified at how Jefferson was able to invent such an unusual set of
doors. And it wasn\'t until 150 years later, when the floor needed to be
replaced, that a mechanism was found under the flooring and the mystery was
solved.
Thomas Jefferson was known as the \"Father of American Architecture\"
because of ingenious ideas for new buildings. He was a man that was very ahead
of his time, and today is still truly appreciated. He had wished that he would
die in Monticello and his wish was answered. He died in his bedroom at
Monticello on July 4, 1826 and was also buried on the grounds. The great mansion
had to be sold to pay for his debts and is now a place that is a well-known
tourist attraction.