Northwest Chamber
Jefferson's fascination with octagons was lifelong. He sketched plans for octagonal structures throughout his life and incorporated octagonal rooms in his second design of Monticello. This house is octagonal and contains four elongated octagonal spaces around a center cube room that served as Jefferson's dining room. The lower level has the same floor plan as the main level and was used as storage and sleeping spaces for craftsman working on the house and Burwell Colbert, Jefferson’s enslaved manservant.This room, one of two small chambers on the North side of the house, would have served as storage space or as a bedchamber if needed. Jefferson didn’t typically have enough overnight visitors to require use of these spaces as bedchambers often, but we know for example, in 1817, while construction was happening in the east bedchamber where his granddaughters, Ellen and Cornelia slept, the girls were relegated to one of these small chambers and complained about it in letters back to family at Monticello.
Dining Room
The Dining Room is architecturally much more formal than the private bedchambers. Jefferson would have entertained his neighbors who would occasionally visit over supper here in this room. Likely these neighbors would have been very impressed by the 20’ cube shape of the space and the 16’ skylight that tops the room.Because this room is more formal than most of the rest of the house, the decorative elements of the room match that aesthetic. The entablature in the space is much more ornate than would have been in the rest of the house. Likewise, the floor is laid out in a herringbone pattern as opposed to the random width plank flooring which is featured in the other rooms of the house. A letter from Jefferson to the workmen describes the pattern he wanted in the dining room and also how to create it.Breakfast was taken early in the day and this would give Jefferson and his grandchildren a chance to plan out their days together. The family would then pursue their own interests during the day and would reconvene for supper in the Dining Room around 3 or 4 p.m. All of Jefferson’s meals were taken leisurely and were known to last several hours particularly with interesting guests in attendance.Jefferson’s enslaved cook and housekeeper Hannah was in charge of making all of the meals served at Poplar Forest. She was born at Monticello in the 1770s and she and her family were moved to Poplar Forest when she was a teenager. She cooked for Jefferson throughout his retirement. Jefferson described Hannah’s meals as “simple plantation fare.” While no meal descriptions exist, we do have an idea of what kinds of foods were consumed at Poplar Forest. Ellen wrote to her mother in 1819, “we have lived altogether on chickens.” Jefferson would often purchase chickens, turkeys, and vegetables from Hannah’s mother, Cate Hubbard, the enslaved matriarch of the Hubbard family, the largest enslaved family at Poplar Forest.While Hannah was in charge of cooking all the meals, Burwell Colbert, Jefferson’s enslaved manservant, would serve the meals. Food would be brought from the kitchen and set on two dumbwaiters in this room. These pieces of furniture featuring three shelves would hold all the food and diners would serve themselves. Colbert would leave the room, closing the four sets of glass doors as he went to allow for as much privacy as possible. He would most likely return to the kitchen and wait the ringing of the bell that ran from the east door of the dining room to the outside of the wing of offices.An elongated three-part mahogany table was used in this room, in keeping with Jefferson’s octagonal theme. The table comes apart allowing for more company or a more intimate setting if there are only a few people at the meal. The dish ware used at Poplar Forest is part of the Oxford and Cambridge Series of Ridgeway Pearlware. Each piece showcases a different building on the campus of either Oxford or Cambridge Universities and showcases an octagonal frame around that center image.As was common in Jefferson’s day, the dining room was often used at other times throughout the day for other purposes. Cornelia was known to practice her drawing skills here, taking advantage of the skylight and the extra light it provides. This room and the parlor located through the door across the room from the fireplace would be heavily used during the day.
Parlor
In Jefferson’s day, the parlor served as a multi-use space including a library, a study, and a sitting parlor among other uses. This room faces due south and receives direct sunlight most of the day. The four sets of triple hung sash windows allow for that natural light to enter the room. The South Portico directly off of the parlor created an outdoor extension of the room overlooking the sunken south lawn, which would have been framed with trees and shrubbery.Jefferson kept a library of almost a thousand books at Poplar Forest including roughly 400 petit format books. These small books were lightweight and easily fit in a pocket so Jefferson could always have a book with him. The Poplar Forest library was kept separately from the Monticello library and was therefore not included in the sale to reestablish the Library of Congress after the War of 1812. In fact, right after the Monticello library was shipped to Washington D.C., Jefferson set off to visit Poplar Forest, perhaps in part to be around what books remained.Jefferson was also an avid letter writer. In total, he wrote approximately 19,000 letters during his lifetime; 1,500 of which included information about Poplar Forest providing the Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest with a treasure trove of information about the construction of the house and how Jefferson spent his time here. On display on the revolving top table is a device called a polygraph machine. This instrument would make a copy of the letter Jefferson was writing as he wrote it so he could keep a duplicate for his records. Because of this machine, at least one copy of most of Jefferson’s adult correspondence survives today.The chair in this room is called a campeachy chair, named after the region in Mexico the wood came from to make them originally. Jefferson owned several of these at Monticello and had one sent to Poplar Forest in 1819 as it relieved the rheumatism in his lower back. John Hemmings would have made Jefferson’s campeachy chair that was sent to Poplar Forest. The chair in this room today is a reproduction and you are welcome to try it out, but please remove any items from back pockets so the chair doesn’t get damaged.Jefferson and his grandchildren would have spent their evenings together in this room. Tea was served around 9 p.m. and, as Ellen recounted in an 1856 letter to an early Jefferson biographer, “we saw, too, more of our dear grandfather at those times than at any other. He was most desirous that we should find congenial occupations, and we had books, drawing materials, embroidery, and never felt time heavy on our hands. He interested himself in all we did, thought, or read. He would talk to us about his own youth and early friends, and tell us stories of former days. He seemed really to take as much pleasure in these conversations with us, as if we had been older and wiser people.”Undoubtedly, Poplar Forest was a very special place for the grandchildren who accompanied Jefferson here.
Girls' Bedchamber
As you can clearly see, this side of the house is being left unfinished. A fire in 1845 devastated the house, leaving nothing standing but the brick walls and columns on the porticos. The property was out of Jefferson family ownership at that point and the owners of the house rebuilt to make it more comfortable for them. Because of this, a big part of the Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest’s history with this house is a full-scale restoration of the house and landscape to its Jefferson-era appearance.Jefferson often called this the ‘girls' room’. Ellen and Cornelia probably occupied this room the most; however Jefferson’s daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph most likely would have stayed in this room during the few visits she made to Poplar Forest. John Hemmings called this “the young ladies room” in one of the letters he wrote to Jefferson.This side of the house is being left unfinished to allow visitors to see the craftsmanship of Jefferson’s builders. Here we can see clues found during the investigation stage of the restoration. The fireplace on the south side of the room with the stanchion in front of it is unchanged from Jefferson’s time and is the only original fireplace in the house. Charred nailing block holes provide clues as to where trim work was hung around the rooms of the house. As the interior walls are all solid brick, the builders would carve out these holes where they could insert small pieces of wood to nail up trim. The white door in this stair pavilion gave Jefferson and his grandchildren access to the terras roof where they would “sally out with the owls and bats” to have their evening exercise. The meals were also coming through this area to get to the dining room. In 1817, to create privacy for the bedchamber, construction in this room closed off the south side of the bed alcove, turning the south half of the room into a pantry. This allowed Burwell Colbert a space to bring food from the wing and move it into the dining room without being in the bedchamber.On the North side of the room is one of two original doors saved from the 1845 fire and reused in the house over the generations. Research revealed it was made at the Monticello joinery by enslaved craftsman, John Hemmings or one of his three nephews (Beverly, Madison and Eston) who were also sons of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. All three came to Poplar Forest to work on the terras roof over the dining room. Two doors were saved during the 1845 fire, possibly taken down to help move items out of the house and also to be reused when the house was rebuilt. They were cut down to fit new sized door frames and therefore they don’t fit the Jefferson doorways any longer, but we were able to use this one as a model for all the reproduction walnut doors you see throughout the house.
Northeast Chamber
This room, one of two small chambers on the North side of the house, would have served as storage space or as a bedchamber if needed. Today, we use this room to showcase the plastering process on the walls. As you can see on the east side of the house, all of the interior walls are brick, including the non-structural walls like these that create the hallway. This process is called brick nogging and it helped protect the house from critters in the walls and fire damage. As you can see looking at the plastering example, once the brick is installed, three layers of plaster are added to finish the walls. In Jefferson’s day, the walls would have had a tinted limewash on them so there would have been some color in the house. We want to thank you for visiting Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest today. We receive no ongoing state or federal funds, so every dollar you spend on admission and in the Museum Shop goes back into the restoration and conservation of the site. From here, everything else is self-guided. I encourage you to go to the lower level of the house, the Wing of Offices, the 1857 Slave Dwelling, and the Quarter Site if weather permits. If you have any questions about the tour, please let the Museum Shop staff know, and we hope you come back to visit us. Check out our website and social media pages and stay up to date on the restoration and preservation of Jefferson’s retreat home!
Jefferson's Bedchamber
This room was Jefferson's bedchamber. If you have been to Monticello in the past, the set up of this room will likely look familiar to you. The bed would have been placed between the two walls in the center of the room. This feature was called an alcove bed and it's possible that Jefferson would have separated the spaces on either side of the bed as he did at Monticello, with a study on one side and a chamber for dressing on the other.Jefferson's bedchamber was the most private room of the house and would likely have only been visited by Jefferson and his enslaved manservant, Burwell Colbert. We believe Colbert would have slept in the lower level underneath this room to allow for easy and quick access upstairs. Colbert traveled with Jefferson to Poplar Forest every time he came during his retirement years and "carried the keys," meaning he had access to all locked areas of the house including the wine cellar and the pantry. He would have acted as butler: serving meals, admitting visitors, and making sure the house ran smoothly while Jefferson was in attendance.Jefferson used Poplar Forest to attend to some of his favorite pastimes. In 1811, writing to friend and fellow founding father, Benjamin Rush, Jefferson said about visiting Poplar Forest, "I have fixed myself comfortably, keep some books here, bring others occasionally, am in the solitude of a hermit, and quite at leisure to attend to my absent friends." Jefferson used his trips to Poplar Forest to focus on tasks and projects such as measuring Sharp Top, a mountain at the Peaks of Otter, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains. At 72, Jefferson hiked to the top of Sharp Top, making calculations and measurements, then spent the next few weeks working out the trigonometry needed to determine how tall the mountain was. You can see examples of this work on the revolving top table in this room.Looking around the house, you may notice there isn't much furniture. This is simply because we don't know exactly how the house was furnished. We have a few clues from letters, tax records, and even drawings about what furniture pieces were in the house. For example, we know Jefferson ordered three dozen Windsor chairs painted black with yellow trim because the letter from Jefferson to his merchant still exists. We've had these chairs reproduced for you to use as you explore the house. We also know this revolving top table was in the house thanks to Cornelia Randolph, who was learning mechanical drawing from her grandfather and would practice while at Poplar Forest. She drew a picture of the table and a Windsor chair and wrote Poplar Forest in the corner. The revolving top tables in the house today are reproductions, but the original does exist. It is on display at Monticello in their visitor center.This room was one of the first to be finished, both in Jefferson's day and today with the restoration. Looking around this room, you can see a Tuscan Entablature around the top of the walls. The Tuscan order of Palladian architecture was the lowest and most informal and would typically have been used in private spaces. Now compare the entablature in this room with the entablature in the center dining room which is the Doric order and much more formal.
Landscape
Jefferson’s architectural style was heavily influenced and inspired by Andrea Palladio, an Italian Renaissance architect Jefferson had studied since he was young student at the College of William and Mary.Palladian architecture draws heavily from classic Greek and Roman architectural traditions which favor balance and symmetry. Palladio’s Villa Barbaro (as seen on the reader board at the west mound and on your screen) is a prime example of a 5-part Palladian design that Jefferson emulated at Poplar Forest. The Villa Barbaro has two story pavilions at each end, one story wings on each side that connect to a two story house in the center. In Jefferson’s design, he used landscape features to create this same silhouette. When the house was constructed, two double rows of Paper Mulberry trees were planted on either side of the house to create the illusion of a wing on either side. In 1813, Jefferson instructed his craftsmen to build the Wing of Offices on the east side of the house giving him a traditional one story wing that was balanced by the double row of paper mulberries on the west.Jefferson’s design at Poplar Forest was the culmination of a lifelong study in architecture and was unachievable without enslaved labor. While Jefferson hired white workman such as Hugh Chisholm to lead the construction of the house, enslaved master craftsman, John Hemmings, was responsible for most of the finish woodwork in and around the house. The roofline, entablatures, doors, and other features made from wood would have been made by Hemmings or one of his apprentices: Beverly, Madison, or Eston Hemings. These young men were Hemming’s nephews and Jefferson’s sons by his enslaved chambermaid at Monticello, Sally Hemings. Enslaved workers also transformed the grounds surrounding the house to create the landscape architecture Jefferson designed. Looking toward the two story side of the house, you can see the sunken South lawn which was part of Jefferson’s design. The creation of the South Lawn and the two mounds of dirt on either side of the house was undertaken by at least one enslaved man named Phill Hubbard. Jefferson wrote to Chisholm in 1807, “if you would engage the negroes to dig and remove the earth South of the house...I would gladly pay them for it. But it is only with their own free will and undertaking to do it in their own time.” A year later, the digging had started and Chisholm wrote to Jefferson, “I set Phill to digging, and I mean to keep him at it as long as I am hear [sic], for I think it as necessary a job as can be done to the Building.”This lawn allowed for access into the lower level of the house while maintaining the look of a one story house on the North side. And now you can move toward the Carriage Turnaround for your final stop before heading into Jefferson’s retreat.
Carriage Turnaround
Just as Jefferson was a methodical planner with his overarching architectural design, his decorative landscape was just as thought out. A carriage turnaround sits just in front of the North Portico allowing Jefferson and his grandchildren to be dropped off at the steps leading into the main level of the house. Two clumps of trees decorate the North corners of the house. These clumps emulate landscape features Jefferson saw in English gardens. Jefferson also specified that oval-shaped beds of roses be planted in the center of the turnaround and on either side. Although we do not think that any of his original ornamental plantings survive, the five tulip poplar trees on the north side of the property may be the last remnants of a grove of trees that Jefferson chose to leave in place while designing his landscape. The ornamental plantings you see today are all the exact plants Jefferson had planted exactly where they originally were based on archaeological evidence.The house itself was constructed using hand made bricks created onsite. Hugh Chisholm, the master brick maker who supervised the construction of the house oversaw the creation of over 240,000 bricks using enslaved labor. These bricks were used to create the interior and exterior walls as well as the columns on both porticos that were then covered in stucco so they resembled stone. The exterior brick on the house today including the brick in the columns on both porticos are original brick from the construction of the house in the early nineteenth century.The house you’ll see today is a fully restored Poplar Forest, a process that took about 40 years. This is due in large part to a fire that broke out in 1845, after the property had left Jefferson-family ownership. The Cobbs-Hutter family who owned the house in the mid nineteenth century rebuilt the interior of the house to their specifications and needs. Later in the twentieth century, the Watts family continued to alter the house for their purposes. The Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest formed in 1983 to purchase the house and roughly 50 acres of land with the intention of restoring it back to its Jefferson-era appearance.Before entering the house, please make sure to wipe your feet if the ground is wet. Photography is allowed inside the house, but please be aware of other visitors and guided tours in the house. No food or drink is allowed inside. Leave all beverages and food on the North Portico. The Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest is working diligently to preserve Jefferson’s retreat home. Because of this, we ask that you please not touch any of the walls, trim work, or furnishings in the house as you walk through. The only exceptions are the Black Windsor chairs throughout each room, which are reproductions and meant for your use. Please leave umbrellas on the North Portico if it’s raining. And now you may move into the retreat home. We recommend you start in the first room on the right.
