While Jefferson often gets the credit, it was enslaved chefs like James Hemings, who created Monticello's famed "half Virginian, half French" cuisine. Food Historian Leni Sorensen explains how Hemings's training in France and the installation of stew stoves changed cooking here.
Monticello's former Robert H. Smith Director of Restoration, Bob Self, demonstrates the making a mortise and tenon joint, one of the classic techniques that would have been used by joiners James Dinsmore and John Hemmings at Monticello.
With "a greater eye to convenience," Jefferson employed a number of mechanical gadgets at Monticello, including several different types of dumbwaiters.
On July 3, 1789, just before the storming of the Bastille and two months before he returned to America, Jefferson purchased a number of busts from Houdon. Among these was a terra-cotta patinated plaster of Jefferson's trusted friend, the marquis de Lafayette.
One of Monticello's most memorable features is the Great Clock, designed by Jefferson, built by Peter Spruck in 1792, and fully functional today. The clock, with both an interior and exterior face, dictated the schedule of the entire plantation, inside the building and out.
World-renowned photographer and editor, Miguel Flores-Vianna captures inspiring views of Monticello for Cabana Magazine “…it may be said that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather.” -The Marquis de Chastellux, 1782...
Jefferson was Monticello's architect. But many of its finest architectural features -- including this lovely Elliptical Arch in Monticello's Library -- were realized by two highly skilled joiners, James Dinsmore, a hired worker, and John Hemmings, who was enslaved at Monticello.
