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Saving Monticello

The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built

About The Book

The complete history of Thomas Jefferson's iconic American home, Monticello, and how it was not only saved after Jefferson's death, but ultimately made into a National Historic Landmark.

When Thomas Jefferson died on the Fourth of July 1826, 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. So how did it become the national landmark it is today? 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 their family home. With a dramatic narrative sweep across generations, Marc Leepson vividly recounts the turbulent saga of this fabled estate.

Monticello's first savior was the mercurial U.S. Navy Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, a sailor celebrated for his successful campaign to ban flogging in the Navy and excoriated for his stubborn willfulness. In 1833, Levy discovered that Jefferson's mansion had fallen into a miserable state of decay. Acquiring the ruined estate and committing his considerable resources to its renewal, he began what became a tumultuous nine-decade relationship between his family and Jefferson's home.

After passing from Levy control at the time of the commodore's death, Monticello fell once more into hard times. Again, a member of the Levy family came to the rescue. Uriah's nephew, a three-term New York congressman and wealthy real estate and stock speculator, gained possession in 1879. After Jefferson Levy poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into its repair and upkeep, his chief reward was to face a vicious national campaign, with anti-Semitic overtones, to expropriate the house and turn it over to the government. Only after the campaign had failed, with Levy declaring that he would sell Monticello only when the White House itself was offered for sale, did Levy relinquish it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923.

Pulling back the veil of history to reveal a story we thought we knew, Saving Monticello establishes this most American of houses as more truly reflective of the American experience than has ever been fully appreciated.

About The Author

Marc Leepson has written features and book reviews for many publications, including The New York Times, Preservation, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, and The Sun (Baltimore) and is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Americana. He lives with his family in Middleburg, Virginia.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Free Press (March 6, 2002)
  • Length: 320 pages
  • ISBN13: 9780743226028

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Raves and Reviews

Susan Stein Curator, Monticello Leepson's Saving Monticello, filled with new information, traces the fascinating and little-known story of the remarkable Levy family and its commitment to the preservation of one of America's greatest monuments. Leepson captures the vitality of Uriah P. Levy and his nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy in this well-written account.

Richard Moe President, National Trust for Historic Preservation In its own way, the story of the Levys at Monticello is as compelling as the story of Jefferson at Monticello. It's not simply a story of how a remarkable family saved a special place, it's a very human story -- indeed, a very American story -- wonderfully told. I highly recommend it.

Ira Dye author of The Fatal Cruise of the Argus: Two Captains in the War of 1812 Excellent and highly readable, Saving Monticello is filled with fascinating detail about the life and times of the jewel of American architecture, from its design by the most brilliant of the Founding Fathers, through its close calls with destruction, to its status today as one of the most beloved of our national monuments. Marc Leepson skillfully parallels the story of Monticello itself with the saga of two generations of the remarkable family that preserved it.

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