Poplar Forest: The Lost Private World of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson’s most intimate and idealistic work of domestic architecture was mostly unknown in his time and in ours. Poplar Forest was Jefferson’s retreat for fourteen years and represents a large missing chapter of his retirement, as well as the missing link in understanding his life as an architect and builder. Jefferson’s unique, modern, idealistic, and arguably most perfect work was mostly unknown except by a few of his foreign friends and family. For ten years the architectural gem was crafted by enslaved joiner John Hemings and his three nephew apprentices, Jefferson’s unacknowledged bi-racial sons. Poplar Forest was their masterpiece as well as Jefferson’s. 

Join Travis McDonald, Poplar Forest's Director of Architectural Restoration, who will discuss how the award-winning restoration of the plantation has revealed many of Jefferson's characteristics as an accomplished architect and builder. Poplar Forest and its unique landscape architecture represents one of the most significant new insights into Thomas Jefferson’s life and his architectural ideals in the past 100 years. The restoration of Poplar Forest now places it in the context of Jefferson’s lifelong role as a self-trained architect and experienced builder.

This lecture is presented by the University of Virginia Society of Architectural Historians (UVASAH).