Jefferson’s desire to avoid having people descend upon him during his private time meant that few of his contemporaries were aware of his getaway’s location. A private home for succeeding families for over 150 years after Jefferson’s time, Poplar Forest remained out of the public eye— known only to Jefferson scholars and architectural historians, though recognized by the Secretary of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark. 

In the 1980s Thomas Jefferson’s personal retreat became endangered— threatened by encroaching redevelopment of central Virginia’s farmland.  Jefferson’s 4,812-acre plantation was whittled down to a mere 50 acres containing the house and two other remaining original buildings that Jefferson had designed.  The rest of Jefferson’s farm was rapidly carved into subdivision tracts and housing construction began.  Only the neighboring community knew what stood in the path of this development.

In December 1983, a small group of local residents formed the nonprofit Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest to lead an effort to rescue Thomas Jefferson’s retreat.  With one gift of $50,000 as a down-payment, the group took title to the 50 acres containing Jefferson’s surviving buildings and also to an adjacent tract of land where developers were about to build more subdivision housing.   In all, those first two purchases totalled $1.7 million.  Massive loans from area banks were buying time for the group to raise the funds it would take to secure Poplar Forest’s future.

Step by step the fledgling nonprofit worked to spread the word of the threat to Thomas Jefferson’s retreat.   Two years later, still striving to pay off the acquisition loans, the Corporation opened Poplar Forest to the public for the first time, stabilized the historic features, and took the first steps to begin state-of-the-art restoration.

It took five years to complete payment on those first acres.  Since that start, the nonprofit Corporation has continued working to purchase the rest of the significant land at the heart of the plantation retreat.   One of the most important objectives is to secure all of  Jefferson’s curtilage--  the 61-acre space that he organized as his retreat environment with the octagonal house at its center.  Acquiring that land is essential to understanding and restoring Jefferson’s design for his villa retreat.  So far, the Corporation has purchased the northern two-thirds of the curtilage. 

In total, the nonprofit now owns 577 acres of Jefferson’s plantation retreat free and clear, and has taken title to another 39 acres with bank loans while it seeks funds to complete the rescue of that land.  There are still a few more parcels of critically important land that are unprotected-- and should be secured in order to pass Thomas Jefferson’s retreat to the generations who will come after us.