Saving Monticello
Subtitle: the Levy family's epic quest to rescue the house that Jefferson built
By: Marc Leepson.
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 303
Subjects: Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826 -- Homes and haunts -- Virginia -- Albemarle County; Levy, Uriah Phillips, 1792-1862; Levy family; Monticello (Va.) -- History; Historic sites -- Conservation and restoration -- Virginia -- Albemarle County; Historic buildings -- Virginia -- Albemarle County -- Design and construction; Historic preservation -- United States -- Case studies; Antisemitism -- United States -- Case studies
Genres: Case studies.
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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [285]-292) and index.