Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest
National Historic Landmark; Thomas Jefferson'S Octagonal Private Retreat, Begun 1806, Owned And Restored By The Corporation For Jefferson'S Poplar Forest · Forest, Virginia
The house Thomas Jefferson built for himself. Monticello was a public performance - visitors arrived constantly, stayed for weeks and very nearly bankrupted him - and Poplar Forest, ninety miles south-west near Lynchburg, was where he went to get away from it. He began building in 1806 while still president and used it for the rest of his life, riding down three or four times a year to read, think and be left alone. It is the most purely architectural thing he ever did: a perfect octagon, each room derived from the geometry, with a twenty-foot cube at the centre lit only from a skylight above, flanked by a pair of octagonal privies and earthen mounds laid out as a private landscape. He was answering to nobody's taste but his own. For most of the twentieth century it was a private farmhouse, altered and then gutted by fire; a foundation bought it in 1984 and has been peeling the alterations back ever since, so a visit is partly a tour of a house and partly a tour of a restoration still in progress, with the archaeology open beside it.
1542 Bateman Bridge Road, Forest, Virginia, 24551, United States
Generally open daily in season, roughly 10 AM to 4 or 5 PM, with REDUCED WINTER HOURS and some seasonal closure - check the calendar before travelling. The house is seen on a guided tour included with admission and running to a published daily schedule; the grounds are self-guided. Admission is charged per person and this is a private non-profit, so federal and state passes do not apply. THIS IS AN ACTIVE RESTORATION: what is open changes from season to season.
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