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An Apollonaut travel guide
A house on the summit.
An introduction to Charlottesville and the Southwest Mountains, where Monticello looks out over the Virginia Piedmont.
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Read the land from the summit
Monticello stands on an 850-foot peak in the Southwest Mountains, in Albemarle County near Charlottesville. The plantation once covered 5,000 acres.
A regional guide can give context without turning a landscape into a backdrop. Notice how the house is placed on the summit, how Mulberry Row runs beside it and how the work of the plantation was arranged. Respect homes, working farms and places of worship.
Palladio in Virginia
Jefferson drew on the neoclassical principles of Andrea Palladio, and his rebuilt house is crowned by an octagonal dome. With the University of Virginia, it forms a World Heritage Site.
Begin with a detail and ask how it was made, repaired and maintained, and by whom. A photograph alone cannot tell you who laid a brick or cut a column, or the conditions in which they worked.
A Monticello chapter
Monticello shows one side of early American Virginia: a plantation run on enslaved labour, home to Thomas Jefferson, president of the United States from 1801 to 1809.
Look at the meeting of the two: the house built to Jefferson’s ideals, and the workshops and dwellings of Mulberry Row.
Make room for context
Pair this regional reading with the house’s history and the Journal. This is an introduction for visitors, not a claim that our team manages these places, commissions their restoration or represents their makers.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
