Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest

That was when Jefferson's workmen built the wing of service rooms onto the east side of the house.

Today, masons are hard at work on the wing again, painstakingly rebuilding sections of it or carefully repairing original sections of the brick walls.

Model of a column

So far, the exterior walls are completed for three of the four rooms, giving visitors a better idea of how Jefferson's retreat looked after his one major addition to the house. Exhibits and a model of a column are also greatly aiding in the interpretation of the project itself and the original structure.

The project is a combination of reconstruction, restoration, and conservation to recreate the wing where the cook lived during Jefferson's visits as well as where the kitchen, smokehouse, and storage room were located.

Once the masonry is completed, the carpenters will take over and frame Jefferson's special terras roof of the four-room wing that will span 100 feet from the house to the ornamental mound on the east side of the house.

Since January, masons have repaired original stone footings and retaining walls constructed by Jefferson's workers. The masons laid stone and a combination of original and customized hand-made reproduction bricks to build up the missing sections of the walls.

Masons encountered two challenges, the first of which was a bulging brick wall on the south side of room 3, the cook's room. In order to retain this original wall, masons had to rotate it 3 1/2 inches to straighten it. To do so, they removed all of the hard Portland cement used after Jefferson's time and substituted the more flexible lime mortar, which is also authentic for the Jefferson period. Then, using straps attached to a wooden frame, masons ratcheted the wall gradually over a two-month period to rotate it into alignment. After the pier was stabilized in the correct position, masons were able to finish restoring it.

The second challenge came in the fourth room, which was the site of the smokehouse. There they had to resolve the longstanding dilemma of the crush of soil against the room's outside stone wall, called the retaining wall.

Building retaining wall

When Jefferson's workmen sliced into the mound in order to allow the wing's eastern end wall to directly abut the mound's bulk, the ensuing pressure of the soil (some 50,000 pounds against the 20-foot wall) caused the retaining wall to bulge.

The solution: separate the mound and wing with a reinforced concrete beam. The beam is designed to withstand the lateral pressure without bowing, and will be located between the mound and two original perpendicular stone and brick walls. The perpendicular walls will help hold the reinforced beam in place, and the beam will bear the brunt of the soil pressure.