The David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center serves as the gateway to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. The visitor center comprises five pavilions surrounding a courtyard with gardens, honey locust trees and a scale model of the Monticello plantation.
Monticello was built by Thomas Jefferson between 1769 and 1809. Situated on the summit of an 850-foot high park in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna gap, Monticello, whose name derives from Italian meaning "little mountain", was originally a 5,000 acre plantation cultivated tobacco and mixed crops using the labor of enslaved African people. After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property to Uriah P. Levy who preserved the property and left it to his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy, who eventually sold it in 1923 to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates it as a house museum and educational institution.
National Register #66000826 (1966)
VLR #002-0050
UNESCO World Heritage Site #442
AIA150 #27
Tags: Virginia Piedmont Charlottesville Albemarle County Monticello UNESCO World Heritage Site UNESCO World Heritage Site Virginia Landmarks Register landmark US National historic landmark NHL National Historic Landmark National Register of Historic Places US National Register of Historic Places NRHP USNRHP Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center Visitor Center AIA150
This life-size sculpture of Thomas Jefferson, designed by Stuart Williamson under the direction of Ivan Schwartz and StudioEIS, was installed at the Monticello Visitor Center near the upper entrance to the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Gallery and the shuttle bus to the mountaintop in 2009. The portrait, standing nearly 6-feet, 3 inches tall, captures Jefferson at about the age of 70 as he probably looked during his retirement at Monticello. To create the portrait, StudioEIS artists studied the bust of Jefferson by Jean-Antoine Houdon, for whom Jefferson sat in 1789 and to likenesses painted by Rembrandt Peale and Gilbert Stuart. The standing pose is derived from Thomas Sully's portrait painted at Monticello in 1821 for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Monticello was built by Thomas Jefferson between 1769 and 1809. Situated on the summit of an 850-foot high park in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna gap, Monticello, whose name derives from Italian meaning "little mountain", was originally a 5,000 acre plantation cultivated tobacco and mixed crops using the labor of enslaved African people. After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property to Uriah P. Levy who preserved the property and left it to his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy, who eventually sold it in 1923 to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates it as a house museum and educational institution.
National Register #66000826 (1966)
VLR #002-0050
UNESCO World Heritage Site #442
AIA150 #27
Tags: Virginia Piedmont Charlottesville Albemarle County Monticello UNESCO World Heritage Site UNESCO World Heritage Site Virginia Landmarks Register landmark US National historic landmark NHL National Historic Landmark National Register of Historic Places US National Register of Historic Places NRHP USNRHP Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center Visitor Center Stuart Williamson statue sculpture Thomas Jefferson StudioEIS Ivan Schwartz AIA150
This life-size sculpture of Thomas Jefferson, designed by Stuart Williamson under the direction of Ivan Schwartz and StudioEIS, was installed at the Monticello Visitor Center near the upper entrance to the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Gallery and the shuttle bus to the mountaintop in 2009. The portrait, standing nearly 6-feet, 3 inches tall, captures Jefferson at about the age of 70 as he probably looked during his retirement at Monticello. To create the portrait, StudioEIS artists studied the bust of Jefferson by Jean-Antoine Houdon, for whom Jefferson sat in 1789 and to likenesses painted by Rembrandt Peale and Gilbert Stuart. The standing pose is derived from Thomas Sully's portrait painted at Monticello in 1821 for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Monticello was built by Thomas Jefferson between 1769 and 1809. Situated on the summit of an 850-foot high park in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna gap, Monticello, whose name derives from Italian meaning "little mountain", was originally a 5,000 acre plantation cultivated tobacco and mixed crops using the labor of enslaved African people. After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property to Uriah P. Levy who preserved the property and left it to his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy, who eventually sold it in 1923 to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates it as a house museum and educational institution.
National Register #66000826 (1966)
VLR #002-0050
UNESCO World Heritage Site #442
AIA150 #27
Tags: Virginia Piedmont Charlottesville Albemarle County Monticello UNESCO World Heritage Site UNESCO World Heritage Site Virginia Landmarks Register landmark US National historic landmark NHL National Historic Landmark National Register of Historic Places US National Register of Historic Places NRHP USNRHP Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center Visitor Center Stuart Williamson statue sculpture Thomas Jefferson StudioEIS Ivan Schwartz AIA150
This life-size sculpture of Thomas Jefferson, designed by Stuart Williamson under the direction of Ivan Schwartz and StudioEIS, was installed at the Monticello Visitor Center near the upper entrance to the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Gallery and the shuttle bus to the mountaintop in 2009. The portrait, standing nearly 6-feet, 3 inches tall, captures Jefferson at about the age of 70 as he probably looked during his retirement at Monticello. To create the portrait, StudioEIS artists studied the bust of Jefferson by Jean-Antoine Houdon, for whom Jefferson sat in 1789 and to likenesses painted by Rembrandt Peale and Gilbert Stuart. The standing pose is derived from Thomas Sully's portrait painted at Monticello in 1821 for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
Monticello was built by Thomas Jefferson between 1769 and 1809. Situated on the summit of an 850-foot high park in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna gap, Monticello, whose name derives from Italian meaning "little mountain", was originally a 5,000 acre plantation cultivated tobacco and mixed crops using the labor of enslaved African people. After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property to Uriah P. Levy who preserved the property and left it to his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy, who eventually sold it in 1923 to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates it as a house museum and educational institution.
National Register #66000826 (1966)
VLR #002-0050
UNESCO World Heritage Site #442
AIA150 #27
Tags: Virginia Piedmont Charlottesville Albemarle County Monticello UNESCO World Heritage Site UNESCO World Heritage Site Virginia Landmarks Register landmark US National historic landmark NHL National Historic Landmark National Register of Historic Places US National Register of Historic Places NRHP USNRHP Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center David M. Rubenstein Visitor Center Visitor Center Stuart Williamson statue sculpture Thomas Jefferson StudioEIS Ivan Schwartz AIA150
Monticello was built by Thomas Jefferson between 1769 and 1809. Rejecting the British Georgian architecture that characterized his time, he instead chose to design the main house using neoclassical principles in the 16th-century Italian style of Andrea Palladi. Visitors would enter the house through the tall Northeast Portico, into the Entrance Hall. The East front gives the illusion of a single-story building, but Monticello is in fact a three-story, 33-room home with nearly 11,000 square feet of living space.
Situated on the summit of an 850-foot high park in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna gap, Monticello, whose name derives from Italian meaning "little mountain", was originally a 5,000 acre plantation cultivated tobacco and mixed crops using the labor of enslaved African people. After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property to Uriah P. Levy who preserved the property and left it to his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy, who eventually sold it in 1923 to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which operates it as a house museum and educational institution.
National Register #66000826 (1966)
VLR #002-0050
UNESCO World Heritage Site #442
AIA150 #27
Tags: Virginia Piedmont Charlottesville Albemarle County Monticello UNESCO World Heritage Site UNESCO World Heritage Site Virginia Landmarks Register landmark US National historic landmark NHL National Historic Landmark National Register of Historic Places US National Register of Historic Places NRHP USNRHP East Front East Portico Northeast portico portico AIA150