Visiting Thomas
Jefferson’s Monticello Home (Virginia) with Juilliard Graduate Florence Paget
by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget – Ruth Pennington Paget
My
sister Kathleen came to visit Florence and me while Laurent was away on a
cruise. We went to visit Thomas
Jefferson’s Monticello home outside Charlottesville, Virginia.
We
took the tour. The guide said he wanted to
break with everything British including Georgian architecture.
Jefferson
studied the Renaissance Italian architect Andrea Palladio’s approach to country
villas and used them for inspiration in his Monticello home.
Monticello
is Italian for “Little Mountain.” The
dome on Monticello was the first constructed in the United States. The dome is modeled after the one used in
Palladio’s La Rotunda Villa in Vicenza, Italy.
I
liked the entry hall with its maps of Asia, Latin America, the United States,
and Europe hanging on the walls.
Jefferson wanted to educate his guests as much as he wanted to entertain
them.
The
seven-day clock he invented stands in the hallway along with artifacts that
Lewis and Clark brought back with them, including a buffalo skin with a war
scene painted on it by Native Americans.
Florence said she liked the mastodon bones.
The
“bedroom” with a bed between walls allowed Jefferson to either go into his
study or go into his dressing room. He
invented a machine that would make copies of his letters as he wrote them.
Our
tour guide said that Jefferson wrote 19,000 public and private letters. He often complained that the ink in his pen
would freeze during a Virginian winter.
Jefferson
made the most interesting inventions in his dining room. He had acquired a liking for wine during his
stint as ambassador to France. He liked
wine served at cellar temperature like the French.
To
make sure that his wine did not heat up during the blazing, hot Virginian
summers, he installed a dumb waiter that went directly from his cellar to the
dining room.
He
also had a Lazy Susan door installed for serving food, so slaves would not
interrupt the flow of conversation at the dinner table.
Jefferson
came up with yet another idea for his dining room that people with snow-filled
winters can appreciate; e installed double-paned windows on the north-side of
his house.
I
liked all the skylights in Monticello.
They lightened up the interior and made the house seem larger than it
was.
Our
guide continued, “Jefferson also put in mirrors on opposite sides of rooms so
that they would appear larger.”
I
was impressed by how clever Jefferson was.
The guide said, “Jefferson’s mind seemed to always be at work on home
improvement. He was also the first
person in the United States to have parquet floors laid down at his home.”
According
to our tour guide, “Jefferson took one of his slaves named Peter Hemmings to
Paris with him when he was ambassador to that country.”
The
guide went on to say, “Hemmings learned to cook French food very well. Jefferson said he would give Hemmings his
freedom, if he taught other slaves how to cook French food.”
Hemmings
did just that and earned his freedom.
My
sister Kathleen bought a video about Jefferson that said he wanted to be
remembered for 3 things:
-writing
the Declaration of Independence
-writing
the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Religious Toleration Act
-designing
the University of Virginia
(The
living quarters at the University of Virginia use the same separation of living
quarters between masters and slaves current at the time that Jefferson was
ambassador to Paris.
This
same separation between living quarters for masters and servants can still be
found in Parisian maid’s apartments in Haussman Apartment buildings that are so
beloved and cherished today.)
Happy
Touring!
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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