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It was a close call -- you can look around Poplar Forest today and see that.
Subdivision housing has crept up to the very gates of Thomas Jefferson's second home in what is now Bedford County, Virginia. A public golf course is only a Tiger Woods drive away, close enough to the estate that tourists can hear occasional shouts from golfers.
The house itself has survived a major fire, a succession of modern owners and a period of abandonment. And despite an increase in publicity during the '90s (including a New York Times piece and a segment on Bob Vila's "This Old House"), the oddly octagonal structure that Jefferson built to get away from it all remains one of America's best-kept historical secrets.
Poplar Forest was to Jefferson what Campobello was to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Camp David has been to Bill Clinton. Long before the advent of the Secret Service, Jefferson traveled the 75 miles down from Monticello by horseback to enjoy a measure of solitude. He raised wheat and corn at Poplar Forest, he meditated on life, and he wrote his only book -- "Notes on the History of Virginia."
He and his wife Martha inherited the 4,812-acre plantation from her father in 1773. But Jefferson was a busy man, serving as a member of the House of Burgesses, Governor of Virginia, Minister to France and President of the United States during America's heady post-Revolutionary War years, and it wasn't until 1806 that he was finally able to preside over the laying of the foundation for his octagonal dwelling.
It was to be a revolutionary house for a revolutionary man.
"When finished, it will be the best dwelling place in the state, except that of Monticello," Jefferson wrote, "perhaps preferable to that, as more proportioned to the faculties of a private citizen."
He didn't begin making regular visits, however, until his second presidential term ended and made him a private citizen in 1809. One afternoon a few years later, he interrupted one of his long letters to a friend by noting, with apparent annoyance, "Some visitors have come, unanounced, to look at the house."
Those interlopers turned out to be Andrew Jackson and his entourage. Jackson was making a triumphal pilgrimage to Washington following the Battle of New Orleans, and Jefferson hosted a party for him in Lynchburg later that week.
Jefferson's last trip to Poplar Forest was in 1823, accompanied by his grandson, Francis Eppes. Eppes lived there for four years, then sold the estate to a neighbor in 1828, two years after Jefferson's death. It remained in private hands until 1984, when a non-profit corporation was formed to purchase the house and grounds for $1 million and protect them from ruin and hungry developers.
Reviving Poplar Forest has been a painstaking process, starting and stopping in accordance with the ebb and flow of fund-raising and made much more difficult by an 1845 blaze that gutted the interior. The exterior of the house was finally restored in the summer of 1998.
And it remains a spectacular residence, the entrance framed dramatically by boxwoods and poplars, the design a concrete (or brick) manifestation of Jefferson's diverse interests and influences.
According to the Poplar Forest website: "The 16th century Italian architect, Andrea Palladio, greatly influenced Jefferson's plan for Poplar Forest. He utilized Palladio's rules of design and the idea of blending landscape with architecture. Jefferson also incorprated many French design ideas and conveniences he had observed in Paris, such as floor-to-ceiling windows, alcove beds, a skylight and an indoor privy."
Jefferson also built slave quarters, a "wing of offices" and a separate kitchen. He laid out his gardens in a decorative pattern and built earthen mounds for the purpose of better viewing them.
The last two years have seen the installation of floors (in a herringbone pattern) in the central part of the house, repairs to several of the floor-to-ceiling windows and much of the interior masonry and extensive archaeological excavation on the grounds. Whatever artifacts are unearthed are put on display in a building near the visitor's parking lot, and tourists can often watch the work in progress.
Each July 4, as many as 2,000 visitors roam the estate without paying the usual fee, soaking in the history and listening to a Jefferson impersonator read the Declaration of Independence. Had he seen such a multitude approaching, Jefferson probably would have fled back to Monticello.
Located just a few miles west of Lynchburg near the intersection of Va. 811 and Va. 221, Poplar Forest is open for tours from 10 a.m. until 4 daily. Tickets are $7 for adults, $6 for seniors, $1 for children ages 6-16.
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