Thomas Jefferson, Landscape Architect

" No occupation is so delightful to me as the cultivation of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." - Thomas Jefferson

Circa 1996
- Mark Reynold, Landscape Architect 

Our third President was a veritable renaissance man, a genius who achieved noteworthiness at all her attempted. Farming, architecture, music, classical literature all captured his spirit at one time or another yet many Jefferson scholars concur that gardening was his strongest passion. He is also known as one of our country's first landscape architects. He read current books and philosophies on the trends, visited European landscapes and developed the grid system of land division for our continent. His home that he designed, Monticello, was a grand experiment, a place for Jefferson to apply his theories as he wished. 

Jefferson was born into the plantation life of rural colonial Virginia. Growing up, his father taught him the skills of surveying, map-making, and topography interpretation. Later he inherited surveying and drafting equipment that are still on display today at Monticello. 

In 1768, he chose the site for Monticello. It was on the Rivanna River, an estate of 2,650 acres, site of his previous home, Shadwell. Shadwell burned, and Jefferson did not regret it, for it had been of traditional colonial style, not to his taste. Highly critical of architecture, Jefferson felt the chief merit for architecture in Williamsburg was that it would burn easily. At Monticello he used classical instead of colonial design, but his most radical concept involved development of the land. 

In the words of Alexander Pope, he " consulted the genius of the place" to determine the natural advantages of the site. Most notably, the house was to be set on a mountaintop and utilize the grand view. This was a move forward toward the more philosophical and romantic styles currently in European vogue. It was a move away from symmetry and geometry that most Americans were still employing. In 1769 the mountaintop was leveled and trees were set out even before the house was started. 

In 1772 the "roundabouts" were begun. Another innovative idea, Jefferson designed a series of roads to circumnavigate the mountaintop solely to enjoy the woods and the view. In 1774, Jefferson layed out his vegetable garden on the south slope, with the orchard and vineyard on the terrace below. Jefferson used the orchard to organize the hillside and act as a natural transition to the woods below.    

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