When Thomas Jefferson left the U.S. presidency 200 years ago this spring, no one needed to build a library or memorial to commemorate him.
Jefferson already had a memorial in the form of Monticello, the mountaintop estate he created near Charlottesville, Va., long before he became the nation's third president in 1801.
Jefferson felt so completely at home at Monticello that he almost never left the grounds from the spring of 1809 to the day he died in 1826.
"I am as happy nowhere else and in no other society," he wrote in 1787, "and all my wishes end where I hope my days will end, at Monticello."
More than 27 million people have gone to Monticello to learn about Jefferson and his contributions to American history, including his roles as president, author of the Declaration of Independence, former minister to France, founder of the University of Virginia and citizen farmer.
This spring has brought the completion of a new visitor and education center that promises to enhance the experience for those who make the journey from now on.
The $43 million Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center, designed by Ayers/Saint/Gross of Baltimore and others and dedicated last week, is a "21st century gateway to Monticello" that reflects an ambitious effort to help tell the story of Jefferson's many roles.
It "represents a new era at Monticello," said Leslie Greene Bowman, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit organization that has owned Monticello since 1923. "We are extremely pleased that we will be able to offer our valued visitors not only a more comfortable experience, but also fresh perspectives on this unique place and its complex, ever fascinating owner."
"From the start, we wanted to build an environmentally sensitive facility at Monticello that would enhance our visitor services and advance our educational mission without competing with or detracting from the house and mountaintop in any way," said Daniel P. Jordan, the foundation's former president, who retired last year.
Monticello's visitor center is part of a national trend in which stewards of historic landmarks and sites are building visitor centers to serve and educate crowds that come to destinations as part of an explosion of heritage tourism in America. Examples include the recently completed visitor centers at the U.S. Capitol and Gettysburg National Military Park and the one proposed for Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
