Montpelier (Home of James Madison)

In celebration of President's Day, Ben and I planned a weekend to the Charlottesville, VA, area in which we would go see the homes of three of our country's first presidents: James Madison (Montpelier), Thomas Jefferson (Monticello), and James Monroe (Ash Lawn-Highland). Unfortunately, we both started feeling badly, so we had to cut short our trip yesterday and come home to rest. We did make it to one home, though: Montpelier. Another misfortune we found upon arriving was that the house is undergoing a major renovation right now. There was no mention of this on the Web site, so we learned of this "surprise" after paying, just as we began the tour. Oh well. It was interesting nevertheless, and the area is absolutely beautiful! (The renovations aren't going to be "finished" until this September, and the entire interior of the house may not be finished for at least five years, so I'm not sure that waiting would have been worth it anyway. Maybe we'll go back in 10 years when it's complete!) So, here are a bunch of pictures we took...

The famous "Temple":

The home:

The "yellow" doors below are the original color that Madison used (how cool that they can figure that sort of thing out?!):

The view from his front porch (not too bad, huh?):

Inside the house - the drawing room (in the corner are replicas of portraits of James and Dolly Madison that were in the same location of the original room):

These pictures really show that the entire interior of the house has been "torn apart" for renovation. There is no wallpaper or even final layers of paint on the walls. Workshop items are everywhere that the architect/builders are using to work on ceilings, floors, and every little detail of the house. The ultimate goal is to make it look as precisely the same as the original house as of 1820 as possible (that is the date when James Madison would have been living in the house daily and was still in good health).

These four portraits (replicas are shown--probably made at Kinko's!) were in the same formation on the wall during Madison's time. At the top is George Washington, for whom Madison was speechwriter; left is John Adams, for whom I think he was secretary state or something like that; center bottom is James Monroe; and right is Thomas Jefferson (Madison's best friend):

Madison's Garden:

The view from a field to the west of the house:

This (below) was something we saw along the road leading to Montpelier from the highway. We couldn't resist taking a picture of it, since it seemed sort of funny, especially with the large Holstein cow sitting right in front of the "Got Milk?" sign!