RESTORATION TEAM COMPLETES PLASTERING IN THE HOUSE
Poplar Forest Newsletter, Fall 2004

The two most spectacular rooms at Poplar Forest are now even more dramatic with plastering completed this spring.   The stunning white walls in the 20-foot cube central room, lit by its 16-foot long skylight, and the south chamber with its outer wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, underscore Jefferson’s design credo of creating light and airy spaces.

Completion of the plastering in the two rooms marked the end of the first phase of finish work inside the house and capped off a major two-year effort that has transformed the interior of Jefferson’s retreat.

The parlor on the south side of the house where Jefferson spent his mornings with his extensive library here was the last to receive plaster.

The two chambers on the east side of the house will remain unfinished, allowing visitors to continue to experience the house as Jefferson did when he used the house for six years before the original plastering was completed in 1815.

“A unique aspect of the restoration of Poplar Forest is following the original sequence of how Jefferson finished the house during his 14-year residency,” says Travis McDonald, director of architectural restoration. “We are currently in the year 1815 when the interior has plaster but no finish trim. While Jefferson could picture the completed house in his mind, he lived in a constantly evolving house as pieces eventually found their place in the perfectly ordered assemblage.”

Progress made on wing

While the masons worked inside the house, the carpenters returned to the wing of service rooms. They have finished carving out drainage channels in all the gutter joists there, a mammoth project that entailed the use of chisels and planes as much as possible in order to replicate traditional building practices. There are 33 large gutter joists spanning the roof of the wing, and several smaller gutter joists near the stairway pavilion.

Now the carpenters are starting the next step in replicating Jefferson’s unusual design for a flat roof—installing massive 22 ½ inch-long blocks of wood to raise the ridge joists between the gutter joists.  Like the flat roof over the octagon’s 20-foot high central room, the wing will have a roof with Jefferson’s unique peak-and-valley design to aid in draining rain from the surface.