Poplar Forest (Boundary Decrease and Boundary Increase)

Poplar Forest is a one-story brick house of octagonal plan set on a high basement, with Tuscan porticoes on the entrance and rear facades. Thomas Jefferson designed and built it on his Bedford County plantation as a retreat from the social pressures of Monticello. Construction began in 1806 and continued as late as 1819, and Jefferson visited up to four times a year, often staying a month. The interior has four elongated octagonal rooms around a square central hall once lit from above. A kitchen, a smokehouse and two octagonal privies hidden by artificial mounds survive on the grounds. A fire in 1845 gutted the house, and the rebuilding did not restore the original decoration, skylight or roof balustrade. Only the walls, chimneys and possibly the columns are original, yet the house is regarded as among Jefferson's most important designs and was described by him as inferior only to Monticello. Its listing rests on that architectural and personal connection.