Saving Monticello

Description

A complete history of Monticello, focusing on the stewardship of the Levy family--U.S. Navy Commodore Uriah P. Levy and his nephew U.S. Congressman Jefferson M. Levy--who owned the house from 1834-1923 and saved it from ruin on two different occasions.

Description

"When Thomas Jefferson died on the Fourth of July 1826 - the nation's fiftieth birthday - he was more than $100,000 in debt. Forced to sell thousands of acres of his lands and nearly all of his furniture and artwork, in 1831 his heirs bid a final goodbye to Monticello itself. The house their illustrious patriarch had lovingly designed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, his beloved "essay in architecture," was sold to the highest bidder.". "Saving Monticello offers the first complete post-Jefferson history of this American icon and reveals the amazing story of how one Jewish family saved the house that became a family home to them for 89 years - longer than it ever was to the Jeffersons. With a narrative sweep across generations, Marc Leepson vividly recounts the turbulent saga of this fabled estate. Twice the house came to the brink of ruin, and twice it was saved, by two different generations of the Levy family. United by a fierce love of country, they venerated the Founding Fathers for establishing a religiously tolerant and democratic nation where their family had thrived since the founding of the Georgia colony in 1733, largely free of the persecutions and prejudices of the Old World."--BOOK JACKET.

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• Case studies

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Other Editions

• Saving Monticello: the Levy family's epic quest to rescue the house that Jefferson builtFree Press2001-01-01
• Saving MonticelloUniversity of Virginia Press2003-01-01