From The Archives

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation

Exerpt from Monticello: The Home of Thomas Jefferson

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation (formerly the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation) owns and operates Monticello, the mountaintop home of Thomas Jefferson and the only home in America on the elite World Heritage List of the United Nations.

Incorporated in 1923, after the federal government waived its third opportunity to acquire Monticello for the nation, the Foundation purchased the house and land from the Levy family, stewards of the estate for 89 years. As a private, nonprofit organization, the Foundation receives no regular federal or state budget support for its twofold mission of preservation and education.

Since 1923, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation has steadily expanded its role as a museum and educational institution. Its facilities now include the house and gardens on nearly 2,000 of Jefferson's original 5,000 acres; the International Center for Jefferson Studies next door at Kenwood, a headquarters for Jeffersonian research and teaching and home to the new Jefferson Library; a museum shop; and the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants, which propagates heirloom varieties and makes them available to institutions and individuals. The Monticello Visitors Center houses a permanent exhibition, a theater, a second museum shop, and the Foundation's Department of Education. In 1993, the Foundation led a global commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Jefferson's birth with a special loan exhibition, "The Worlds of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello," and other programs. And in 2003, the Foundation hosted the commencement of the national Lewis and Clark bicentennial commemoration.