Original subtitles

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What does it take to make a house

one of history's greatest homes?

Whether they're warm and cozy or grand and drafty,

when you're building your home,

you're creating your own universe.

And the most celebrated homes in history

stood the test of time.

This is Hampton Court Palace.

It was a place for fun and above all,

as you can see, of magnificence.

This is a spectacular palace even today.

We often describe it as an architectural autobiography.

And so, at Monticello you get a true sense of the man.

I think that the point was to be ostentatious.

This was the statement that they were trying to make,

that they had made it

and they were going to let the world know

that they were important.

(speaking in a foreign language)

You can imagine coming into this room in the evening

or any time of day and everybody who was anybody was here.

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(birds chirping)

(bird cawing)

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Some great homes were at the center

of historic events.

Some are architectural achievements.

Others are renowned for famous residents.

Here in Virginia, one house has it all,

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

Philosopher, revolutionary, founding father,

farmer, and president.

It's quite the resume,

but Monticello is a house that can match

the might of the man.

My name's Gardiner Hallock.

I'm the Robert H. Smith Director of Restoration,

Curatorial, and Facilities at Monticello.

Monticello is the home of Thomas Jefferson

that he starts around 1770.

We often describe it as an architectural autobiography.

And so at Monticello, you get a true sense of the man.

Jefferson's inspiration for building Monticello

on the mountaintop comes when he's a young man.

This is land that was owned by his father

that he inherits when his father dies

when he is very young.

He would come here with his friend and they loved this spot,

and so Jefferson felt when it's time to build his house

that he should build a house on this mountain.

Three stories tall with 43 rooms

and 11,000 square feet of living space,

this was an epic abode for any era.

But building this house on the mountain was no small feat.

It took Jefferson 40 years to build Monticello

and the reason for that is he was a very busy man.

He starts around 1770 when he was about 26 years old

and he doesn't finish until 1809.

Why this happens is because he is deeply involved

in the War for Independence.

Of course, in 1776, writing Declaration of Independence.

He goes to France in 1784, stays for five years.

Becomes the first secretary of state,

the second vice-president,

the third president of the United States.

And so, he has a lot going on.

No kidding.

But wherever Jefferson was throughout his life and career,

Monticello was always the center of his world.

Self-taught in numerous disciplines,

architecture was a personal passion for Jefferson.

He apparently got a book on architecture

from a drunken cabinet maker in Williamsburg,

and this ignited a lifelong passion

in Jefferson for architecture,

and he was widely regarded in his lifetime

as an expert on architecture.

Famously known as the architect

behind the Virginia State Capitol

and the University of Virginia,

when it came to designing his home,

the plans were just as grand.

And no source shaped Jefferson's home more

than "The Four Books of Architecture"

by the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio.

He considered them his architectural bible.

It's called Monticello because Jefferson read in Palladio

that you should build a house on a small mountain,

and so an Italian, Monticello means small mountain.

In Vicenza, Northern Italy,

you'll find buildings that appear uncannily familiar.

The source is the same.

A stone cutter who worked his way up

to become the chief architect of the Republic of Venice.

The Palladian style has been admired

and copied throughout Europe.

National monuments and official buildings,

grand museums, churches, courthouses, banks,

universities, and stately homes.

Without Andrea Palladio,

the world today would be a very different looking place,

as would the United States.

Jefferson has a great quote

in his "Notes on the State of Virginia" that says that,

"The genius of architecture had cast

"maledictions across Virginia."

And so he felt the native architecture was pretty miserable,

that it wasn't worthy of Virginians

and the young United States.

Jefferson pioneered a new style

of architecture in America,

emulating what he called the beautiful monuments

of the ancient world.

With Monticello, he's trying to bring

what he felt was proper architecture to the United States,

to Virginia, to increase the reputation in the whole world

to show that they were capable

of producing extraordinary architecture

that could be measured against what was going on in Europe.

Jefferson's initial plan for Monticello

had just eight rooms,

much smaller than the house we see today.

Following two terms as a Virginia governor,

Jefferson was appointed to take a post in Paris first

as a trade minister, and then as minister to France.

France broadened his architectural horizons

where he marveled at the Hotel de Salm in Paris

and the Maison Carree at Nimes.

He comes back from France.

He starts to build the new Monticello

and it's fairly unique

and so architectural historians call it

Jefferson classicism, or neoclassicism.

He got inspired by these grand new designs he saw.

And so, he comes back to Virginia

and he takes the two ideas

and he meshes it into one sort of unique style.

The Monticello we see today

was the first domed residence in America.

Jefferson takes those Palladian ideas,

the porticoes, the columns, as well as the trim

and the very proportions that Palladio is advocating for

and puts it into the house.

He also brings the French neoclassical ideas.

So like the triple-hung windows,

as well as some of these abstracted architectural elements.

But building his dream into a reality

came with plenty of challenges,

chiefly, finding building expertise in the fledgling nation.

It was a slow process that took decades.

It was definitely a construction site

for much of Jefferson's life.

There's visitors accounts talking about

walking across floors that are just loose planks.

It takes an incredibly long time to build

these grand houses in Virginia at that time.

The craftsmen weren't readily available

so he has to find them.

You had some indentured servants,

you had people from other colonies,

people from Ireland would come and help.

And so, it was revolving cast of people who would come

and work at Monticello.

But Monticello was largely designed by Jefferson

and then built by master craftsmen

who then had enslaved workers working under them.

Jefferson's grand design for his workmen

was to have these master craftsmen teach

his enslaved workers their skills

so that when they left, he could continue building.

It's here that we see the great contradictions

behind this magnificent facade.

I think Monticello is someplace

that I consider to be very, very special.

But I also think that it represents a great deal of pain.

This house was built by enslaved people.

And actually, if you get close enough to some of the bricks,

you can still see fingerprints of the enslaved community

who made the bricks, who put the house together,

and who made this place what it is.

This was not just some glamour home

for a famous man.

It was a working plantation.

My name is Niya Bates and I am the Director

of African-American History at Monticello

and the Getting Word African American Oral History Project.

I think it's important for people to understand

the full history of Monticello

because the enslaved community was in the majority

for most of this place's history.

And if we are going to do justice to this history,

then we have to include the voices

of the enslaved community as well.

Jefferson's main cash crop was tobacco,

as it had been for his father, until 1794

when he switched to wheat and rye.

On any given day, you could come to Monticello

and see approximately 125 to 140 enslaved people.

They were architects, they were wagoners, they were chefs,

they were carpenters, they were furniture makers.

I mean, any skill that you're looking for,

the enslaved community had that.

The plantation main street here at Monticello,

it would have been the core or the hub of activity

for the enslaved community.

Most of the enslaved community here is involved

with agriculture and farming.

Despite his enthusiasm for agriculture,

Jefferson was often hobbled by debt and depressed markets

and his farms rarely made a profit.

Luckily for him, it never prevented him from indulging

in another of his passions.

Jefferson loved fine dining,

as we see in his extraordinary kitchen and garden.

My name is Michael W. Twitty.

I'm a culinary historian and author.

So, right now we are in the home garden at Monticello.

Originally the first gardeners were from Europe

and they trained the enslaved folks

who worked underneath them.

And then when their contract was up,

the enslaved folks took over.

Known as the Revolutionary Garden,

this is one of the most interesting

and influential plots of land in food history.

It's not just hey, this is my home garden.

This is a garden where there was corn from Native people

who Lewis and Clark encountered.

There were bird's chilies from what would become

the American Southwest, which was still part of Mexico.

There was okra that have long been brought from West Africa.

As he traveled far and wide during his life,

Jefferson sought foods and flavors

to bring home to Monticello.

He smuggled rice from Italy, Arborio rice, right,

from the Po Valley.

It was illegal, on pain of death, to smuggle that rice out.

He wanted to grow sesame.

He grew sesame, a little bit sesame,

but not to the degree he wanted.

He wanted to replace olive oil, use it as salad dressing.

So he had this incredible sense of experimentation.

The story is both Native American and Tropical American.

And in addition, it's Caribbean,

but also African and African American.

But this garden is just an extraordinary space.

The garden was a grand experiment.

Of the 330 fruit, vegetable, and herb varieties

grown in Monticello, many were new to American gardens,

including tomatoes, rutabagas, artichokes, eggplants,

broccoli, cauliflower, lima beans, and peanuts.

I don't know that the other plantation sites

have as strong of a connection with international culture.

Jefferson was the founding foodie

of American cuisine and his luxurious tastes extended

from the garden to the kitchen.

Enslaved community living and working here on Monticello

are very skilled.

James Hemings, for instance, trained in Paris

under a French chef and brings the French style of cooking

back here to Monticello.

Edith Hern and Frances Gillette would also follow

in that tradition.

And so this enslaved community trained for a number of years

to produce the fine level of cuisine

that existed here at Monticello.

Top chefs need a top kitchen

and Monticello had the creme de la creme.

So, we are in the 1809 kitchen at Monticello.

This is as good as it gets for most people

living in the rural South.

This is a very elegant architecturally designed

curated space, not only for the purpose of cooking the food,

but there is a certain level of joy and ostentation.

This was among

the best equipped kitchens in America.

It was equipped with the latest in home cooking technology

and specialized cookware was shipped from France

at great expense.

This is an extraordinarily wealthy person's kitchen,

right down to being able to bake.

I mean, we take that for granted.

We think everybody, not everybody had a bake oven.

Not everybody had the capability to have this much space

devoted to a kitchen.

And this kitchen is as influential

as the garden that supplied it.

This is an extremely unique space, culinary space,

social space, historical space, geographic space

in the story of Southern food, Virginia food,

and African-American food ways.

One of the famous descriptions of Jefferson's kitchen

was that it was half French and half Virginian in style

with food served in good taste and abundance.

Well, Virginian, we should read that automatically

as the influences of native Virginians and enslaved Africans

and their engagement with Europeans of different classes.

So in other words, proto-Southern cuisine.

And part of that cuisine is born here.

The fact that we're still able to be here, spectacular

because things happened here that happened nowhere else.

The fusion of cultures and ingredients

of the highly trained chefs defined a cuisine.

We were creating something new,

more than anybody else was.

And because we were creating something new,

we didn't have the rules and boundaries

that other cultures in the New World had.

They knew they'd never get the intellectual,

especially intellectual credit, for what they did,

but they took great pride in their work.

They took great pride in their skill set and abilities.

They knew that when people praised the South for its food,

it was actually them they were praising.

The special ingredients from the garden

were whipped into incredible new American dishes,

then served up to the home's lucky guests.

So, we're in one of the principal rooms

at Monticello, the dining room.

This is probably one of, if not the most,

socially important room in Jefferson's time.

This is where he'd have meals with the many, many visitors

who would come to Monticello.

This is where they would talk business, talk politics,

and also form the ties

that kept Virginia's society together.

This is the room where people would have discussed

the issues of the day.

It served almost as a quasi-public space.

The guest list was typically impressive.

So, his friend James Madison,

who followed him as president,

would come for one month every year.

Lafayette came 1824 on his grand tour of the United States

and stayed here for an extended period of time.

Artists, statesmen, public figures of the day.

We've decorated the space right now with a small table

to show a small vignette,

as if he's having an intimate dinner with someone.

But it would have been possible to expand

into a much larger setting.

As usual with Jefferson, design was everything.

So, the chrome yellow walls,

the striking feature of the dining room,

is actually a very late edition.

Chrome yellow is a synthetic or a man-made pigment

that wasn't developed until the early 19th century.

Why Jefferson loved color?

It was new, right.

It showed the advancing of human knowledge.

It's also known as American yellow or Baltimore yellow.

So it's not only new, it was also American

and so it reflected Jefferson's great pride

in the country that he had helped found.

One of my favorite features of the room

would have to be the skylight.

This was an incredible addition to the house.

Skylights were very rare in Jefferson's time.

So, Jefferson's putting tremendous thought into this space.

So, this room was very much Jefferson showing

how knowledgeable and successful he was.

He loved architecture and that shows at Monticello,

but he also wanted to use architecture

to educate the visitors that came to Monticello.

The house is full of architectural

and design flourishes.

He's not like other Virginia gentries.

He is spending decades researching,

thinking about Monticello.

He has this suite of rooms

that we don't have anywhere else in Virginia.

So, it's a wonderful expression of the man himself.

The dining room wasn't the only place

to receive important guests.

So, the parlor was probably the highest status room

in the house, the room with the most decorations.

It's the room where we know they had weddings,

where they would have greeted guests who came in

from the hall to the parlor,

where Jefferson sat in his Campeachy chair

next to the door reading when he had quiet hours

looking over his west lawn.

And so, it was a multi-purpose entertaining space

that really becomes one of the core,

if not the most important social space.

Monticello wasn't only for entertaining.

There was also the business of living

and working to attend to.

We know from visitor's accounts

that he was fairly private during the day,

would have worked in his cabinet,

in his library, in his chamber.

That's where he principally spent much of his day

when he was reading or writing, returning letters.

The cabinet, Jefferson's office space,

was the nucleus of his intellectual and scientific world.

And for a gadget lover like Jefferson, a room of treasures.

Jefferson's cabinet was a very intimate space.

It's where he would have written letters and correspondence

with people all across Europe, the United States,

sort of a hub, a central intellectual hub for the house.

It was a small room, but it was adjoining his bedroom,

and so it was very intimate that way.

That is probably the room he spent most of his time.

He had the scientific instruments there.

And so, he could have also performed

his experiments in that space.

You knew you were a very important visitor to Monticello

if you went into the cabinet

and he showed you his collection in there.

That's where the most highest status,

the most people he felt most comfortable with

would have been entertained.

In 1809, after a long career in public life,

Jefferson was delighted to leave

the political arena behind him

and retire to his beloved Monticello.

"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."

Thomas Jefferson died at Monticello in 1826

at the ripe old age of 83.

From the grand entrance to cozy bedrooms

up to the sunny dome,

this home was Thomas Jefferson's architectural essay

and lifelong labor of love.

Building Monticello was a great passion of Jefferson's life,

but momentous houses can sometimes cause monumental debt.

This was an immensely expensive house for the time, right.

Jefferson died deeply in debt

and one of the reasons was that he loved architecture

so much that he couldn't restrain himself.

He almost can't stop himself from improving Monticello,

even as he knows his finances are in extreme disarray.

Despite his personal difficulties,

this house is a symbol of a man and a nation,

both with complicated and complex pasts.

If you visit, you will discover a world-class museum

and the only American home

on the United Nations World Heritage list.

Its design, history, and the legacy of the man

who lived here means Monticello will forever be known

as one of history's greatest homes.