When Thomas Jefferson originally moved into the South Pavilion of his Monticello estate in 1770, it was little more than an incomplete two-bedroom brick building and a cleared mountaintop.
Over the course of the next 38 years, the author of the Declaration of Independence would personally design and oversee the construction of his “essay in architecture.” The main house at Monticello, as it stands today, is a piece of architectural wonder; its design embodies themes derived from both Classical and Palladian styles of work.
