Paving Poplar Forest
By Renee Valois
History Channel Magazine, May/June 2005

When Thomas Jefferson wrote of his Poplar Forest plantation, "It is the most valuable of my possessions," he wasn't envisioning hundreds of cash registers churning out profits in a new shopping center.  But eager developers would like to build a mall in the Virginia fields near Lynchburg where Jefferson's slaves once grew wheat and tobacco.

The 72 acres targeted by the developers is the last remaining undeveloped land of the original 4,819 acres that constituted the most productive of Jefferson's several plantations.  In an effort to rescue the land before it is buried beneath tons of concrete, the Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest, with the support and encouragement of area residents, has undertaken a last-minute gamble.

As it did in 1986 when it purchased Jefferson's villa at the site, the nonprofit has taken out a loan in order to obtain title to the "Lower Field" of Jefferson's plantation.  "It was a case of now or never," says corporation President Lynn Beebe.  "There will be no second chance."  Adding the tract to land the corporation has acquired over the years would bring the total to 614 acres.

The new land costs $3 million.  The corporation has so far raised just $200,000 -- and has a limited amount of time in which to qualify for a challenge grant of $500,000 from the Watson-Brown Foundation of Georgia.  If the corporation fails to make the loan payments it will lose the land, so Poplar Forest is not out of the woods yet.

Respite from revolution
Jefferson and his family first fled to the plantation, which his wife, Martha, had inherited from her father, when the British invaded his beloved Monticello in 1781.  In 1806 construction began on the octagonal house of Poplar Forest that rivals Monticello as a source of insight on Jefferson.  "You can learn a great deal about the very private side of Jefferson," according to Beebe.  "It's a place where he went to get away from it all, to find quiet and solitude -- and spend time with his family."

Jefferson often brought a couple of his granddaughters, and especially Ellen Randolph, with him to Poplar Forest after the house was completed in 1812.  Randolph later wrote, "My grandfather was very happy during these sojourns in a comparatively simple and secluded district -- farm from noise and news -- both of which he got too much at Monticello. . . . We saw, too, more of our dear grandfather at those times than at any other. . . . He would talk to us about his own youth and early friends, and tell us stories of former days. . . .  He would take his book from which he would occasionally look up to make a remark, to question us about what we were reading, or perhaps to read aloud to us from hi own book, some passage which had struck him and of which he wished to give us the benefit."

After he retired from the presidency, Jefferson occasionally retreated to Poplar Forest to relax in the remarkable villa that was built according to his explicit instructions.  Jefferson had been fascinated by octagonal buildings for years, but Poplar Forest is the only one he ever built.

Jefferson not only provided the design but also specified all the details, materials, and even construction techniques, Beebe says.  "He came up with a unique design for a flat roof, to allow you to walk on the roof and yet drain the water off.  That document survives.  He tells . . . exactly how it was to be built.  That tells our staff exactly how to reproduce it."

Inspiration to generations
Restoration director Travis McDonald acknowledges that it's rare to have such explicit direction for a restoration because the owner is usually at the building site and the instruction is verbal.  But because Jefferson was in the White House at the time, he had to superintend the construction via letters.

McDonald adds that Jefferson also had a polygraph that he considered the finest invention of the age: A duplicate pen attached to Jefferson's created an exact copy of his original letters as he wrote them.  In this way, Jefferson was able to keep copies of all the letters he sent to his building crew, as well as their letters to him.

"It's rare to have a worker's letter talking about construction, but it's incredibly rare to have a slave worker writing about neoclassical details," McDonald says.  "It was against the law for slaves to be taught to read and write."  Yet Jefferson had his trusted slave craftsman John Hemings do all the finest woodwork, and Hemings conversed with Jefferson at a level of expertise above that of most contemporary American craftsmen.

For help in restoring the house to the way it looked when Jefferson was in residence, restorers also investigated every square inch of the house itself.  They uncovered some welcome surprises.  Under one of the hearthstones, workers found material that bore six different colors of plaster that were used in the early house, McDonald says, and also pieces of ornamentation used to decorate the interior.

In 1998 the exterior restoration was completed, earning Poplar Forest the prestigious Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  Interior finish work continues today.

Archaeologists have continued to excavate various sites on the property, including Jefferson-era farm buildings and slave cabins, privies, and portions of the elaborate formal garden that Jefferson -- a passionate gardener -- created.

There are big plans for using the site not only to educate people about Jefferson but also to inspire future generations to look forward with curiosity and innovation as Jefferson did 200 years ago.

Poplar Forest might be considered "the most perfect thing Jefferson ever constructed," McDonald says.  Hopeful preservationists are facing a deadline to maintain that perfection.