Seeing Monticello has long been an ambition of mine. Every St. Louisan grows up with a healthy respect for the man. Washington might be the father of the country, but Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase made him the father of my bit. It's the Jefferson Memorial that graces our largest park and the Jefferson-initiated Lewis and Clark expedition that fuels our early mythology. We even had a local bank building that was a scale copy of Monticello. Adding to my childhood conditioning was my love of Palladian architecture, of which he was the first great proponent in America, and my recent discovery that he was a wine fanatic. (Of the last, more later.) Thus Thomas Jefferson's home was one of my top three objectives for the trip.
It's worth the effort. Fascinating, picturesque, educational and evocative of the man. It's also tiny. It seems the scale of that local bank wasn't as small as I thought. Monticello's main living space is no bigger than a modern, generously-sized suburban home, and back in Europe would be more of a garden folly or country cottage than the estate of a great man. It's a humbling reminder that this was a colonial frontier.
The house is built on a circular plan, with one room flowing into the next. You start in the main hall and move counter clockwise, progressing through the family sitting room, Jefferson's library and bedroom, the formal sitting room, the dining room and guest bedrooms. There are other rooms, not normally open to the public, on upper floors. The star attraction is the great man's private space. His library flows right into his office, which is divided from his bedroom by his bed, tucked under an arch but open to each room on the sides. That he slept within four strides of his desk says a lot about the man's appetite for work and study. To really appreciate this space, though, you must also visit the Library of Congress, which we did later in the trip. There, you can see the library Jefferson sold when he hit financial difficulties as an older man. In D.C., it's gorgeously housed in a spiral of 7+ foot shelves, glassed in from each side, in a temple-like room with a footprint that's probably the equivalent of the main house at Monticello. How all those books fit in that library is a wonder. They must have been stacked to near the ceiling, in so many piles there could only have been a few rat runs through the volumes. How the man actually found anything in the crush is beyond imagining.
Jefferson's library held titles on every conceivable topic, from Palladio's architectural guides to mathematics textbooks to battle strategy to a handbook on surgery. Even though the books are gone, the restless and comprehensive nature of Jefferson's mind is on show all over his house. Decor ranges from American Indian artefacts to fine European silver and china. Portraits of great men of history ... many of them Jefferson's friends and colleagues ... look down on the sitting room. Scientific instruments and Jefferson's inventions are everywhere. Most frequently photographed is the machine he created to duplicate a letter while he was writing, but my favourite had to be the small dumbwaiters built into the mantle piece in the dining room for the express purpose of bringing bottles of wine up from the cellar.
There's more to see than the house, of course. Monticello's design cleverly incorporates a wide range of service areas beneath walkways spreading out from the house. We loved seeing how he re-engineered his country kitchen to allow for the precise cooking techniques necessary for the haut cuisine he brought home from his time as French ambassador. Volunteers make a stab at recreating some of the estate's plantings, but to an eye used to English gardens, none of the beds were particularly impressive and the lawn was in a deplorable shape. (Something we observed almost everywhere we went on this trip.) The view is really the best thing outside the house, especially when the tour guide points out how you can actually see the University of Virginia campus from here, and Jefferson used to sit on in his gardens with a telescope inspecting the progress of the buildings he designed.
At the foot of the hill, below the house, there's a big, modern visitors' complex with a museum and an extensive gift shop. We didn't have time to explore, but clearly you could spend another hour or more there.
Today there's a major wine trail through Northern Virginia, and Barboursville ... based on awards and rankings ... can claim to be the most serious of the wineries. We stopped there for one of the most comprehensive tastings of our lives. This is the only American operation for the Italian Zonin family, who run vineyards in seven provinces in Italy. That vast experience may be why they feel ambitious enough to grow 13 different varieties of grape here; I've never seen so many at a single estate. The $5 tasting fee takes you through the results in up to 19 varieties, of which we sampled almost all.
They're best know for their "Octagon", a classic, Burgundy-style blend of merlot, cabernet franc, cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot. Amongst other claims to fame, it was served to Queen Elizabeth on her last American visit. (And to our friends Crystal and Mike at their wedding.) Piers and I actually thought their Petit Verdot Reserve was better (intense dark fruits and spices), and would be magnificent with two or three years cellaring. On the white side, their award-winning viognier reserve (tropical flavours, floral tones) won our approbation, and two bottles came with us for celebratory dinners later in the trip. Another award-winner is their Malvaxia Reserve, a sweet, fruity desert wine made from grapes air dried for four months before pressing and fermentation. Should we ever be this way again, the vineyard's B&B and gourmet restaurant would be high on our list.
On the road north we passed James and Dolly Madison's estate, Montpelier. No time for this one, however, as we had a date at the mother of all presidential homes, Mount Vernon.
Like Monticello, Mount Vernon is surprisingly small given the status and prosperity of its owner. It is, however, both larger and more traditional than Jefferson's place. The large dining room is the grandest of the interiors and could easily fit in any late 18th century country house in England. There's a guided tour but it's sadly rushed as, once you've been impressed by the dining room, you get hurried past a small sitting room, breakfast room, a few bedrooms including the one where Washington died, and finally the president's office. While interesting to see, it lacks the quirky stamp of individuality that Jefferson put on Monticello. The view here, however, takes the prize. You can collapse into a rocker on the back porch and look out over the Potomac, where government protections have ensured you get the same uninterrupted view of water and trees that Washington saw.
The grounds are more extensive here, with gardens and outbuildings restored to show how a colonial plantation worked. Like Williamsburg, many of these buildings are occupied by costumed historical interpreters who explain what would have happened there. The real surprise, though, was the visitor centre at the edge of the property. Like Monticello's, it was new and extensive, but here we had time to explore.
We came to discover that this is a typical American trick with any tourist attraction that has more visitors than it can comfortably accommodate. They build a visitor's centre with a museum within it. You're shuffled quickly through the attraction (the White House and Ford's Theater were other examples) and left to do your learning and wandering in the museum. The Mount Vernon example was the best we saw, with one section devoted to furniture, decorative objects and personal items from the house, and the other to Washington's life. This latter was tremendously well done, mixing artefacts, displays, hands-on activities and video. In the main film, seats vibrate to cannon fire and snow cascades down during the Valley Forge scene. Later, you can put your hand on a bible and take the presidential oath on the porch of the capitol. You can gawk at the great man's false teeth. Near the end, you can pay your respects in a room centred by a copy of Washington's coffin.
This is all great fun. But, as with Monticello, there's a serious undertone of wonder here. These were truly great men, and visiting their houses reminds you of that. Washington could have been a military dictator. He could have been king. And yet he walked away. Retired to this beautiful estate, farmed, sat on the back porch and contemplated the fine view. If history had more Washingtons, the world would be a much different place.
Like Monticello, Mount Vernon is surprisingly small given the status and prosperity of its owner. It is, however, both larger and more traditional than Jefferson's place. The large dining room is the grandest of the interiors and could easily fit in any late 18th century country house in England. There's a guided tour but it's sadly rushed as, once you've been impressed by the dining room, you get hurried past a small sitting room, breakfast room, a few bedrooms including the one where Washington died, and finally the president's office. While interesting to see, it lacks the quirky stamp of individuality that Jefferson put on Monticello. The view here, however, takes the prize. You can collapse into a rocker on the back porch and look out over the Potomac, where government protections have ensured you get the same uninterrupted view of water and trees that Washington saw.
The grounds are more extensive here, with gardens and outbuildings restored to show how a colonial plantation worked. Like Williamsburg, many of these buildings are occupied by costumed historical interpreters who explain what would have happened there. The real surprise, though, was the visitor centre at the edge of the property. Like Monticello's, it was new and extensive, but here we had time to explore.We came to discover that this is a typical American trick with any tourist attraction that has more visitors than it can comfortably accommodate. They build a visitor's centre with a museum within it. You're shuffled quickly through the attraction (the White House and Ford's Theater were other examples) and left to do your learning and wandering in the museum. The Mount Vernon example was the best we saw, with one section devoted to furniture, decorative objects and personal items from the house, and the other to Washington's life. This latter was tremendously well done, mixing artefacts, displays, hands-on activities and video. In the main film, seats vibrate to cannon fire and snow cascades down during the Valley Forge scene. Later, you can put your hand on a bible and take the presidential oath on the porch of the capitol. You can gawk at the great man's false teeth. Near the end, you can pay your respects in a room centred by a copy of Washington's coffin.
This is all great fun. But, as with Monticello, there's a serious undertone of wonder here. These were truly great men, and visiting their houses reminds you of that. Washington could have been a military dictator. He could have been king. And yet he walked away. Retired to this beautiful estate, farmed, sat on the back porch and contemplated the fine view. If history had more Washingtons, the world would be a much different place.
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