August 2025

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XXII, Number 8                                                        August 2025

 

PRIDE IN OWNERSHIP: On May 9, 1923, as Jefferson Levy was negotiating the sale of Monticello to the fledgling Thomas Jefferson Foundation, he granted a rare newspaper interview in his West 37^th Street New York City brownstone to Raymond G. Carroll of the Philadelphia Public Ledger.

It marked one of the very few times in his life that the then 71-year-old Levy had opened up about his personal life to a journalist. The article, which appeared two days later and was subsequently carried in other newspapers across the country, provides a rare glimpse into Jefferson Levy’s lavish New York City lifestyle, along with his thoughts about his family, his religion, and his reasons for selling Monticello.

Carroll’s observations are revealing. Levy’s account of his family history and details of his ownership of Monticello also are revealing, even as they also are a mixture of fact and fantasy.

Carroll found Levy, whom he described as being six feet tall and weighing 180 pounds, living with his younger brother, 67-year-old Mitchell Levy, also a life-long bachelor. When Carroll arrived, he wrote, Jefferson Levy, was pacing “up and down in the drawing rooms” of his lavish townhouse. 

The place was packed with works of art, Carroll wrote, including “priceless vases from Sevres, crystal candelabra mounted upon costly bronze bases from Venice, a green malachite table worth $10,000 owned by a Czar of Russia, a bronze head done by the immortal David [d’Angers], a silver carving from the hands of the famous Benvenuto Cellini and other wonderful treasures and paintings.” 

When Jefferson Levy began by talking about his family, he mistakenly claimed, as he had in other interviews, that he and his brother were the last Levy descendants of Asa Levy, a Dutch Jew who had settled in New York City (then New Amsterdam) in 1654; that the Philadelphia Revolutionary War Jewish patriot Benjamin Levy—one of the signers of Continental currency—was his great-grandfather; and that his grandfather Michael Levy served in the Continental Army.

Continental Currency note signed by Benjamin Levy (‘B. Levy’), February 1777

Yes, we are the last of our line, my brother and I,” Jefferson Levy said, ignoring the fact that his sister Amelia was alive, as were his late brother Louis’s four children and Amelia’s son Monroe. 

Plus, there is no evidence that Asa Levy (sometimes referred to as Asser Levy and Asser Levy van Swellem), had any children. And genealogical sources agree that Benjamin Levy’s children did not include Michael Levy, LML’s grandfather—who did not serve in the Continental Army.

When Caroll asked about Monticello, Jefferson Levy claimed that he and “members” of his family had invested a whopping $2.4 million in the property. “This huge expenditure," Levy said, “includes the original cost of Monticello, the expenses of keeping it up, its restoration after the Civil War and the interest on the money sunk in the property.”

 Could that be true? The facts are that Jefferson Levy’s “original cost” for Monticello was just over $10,000 when he acquired the property in 1879. Uriah Levy had paid less than $3,000 when be bought it in 1834. It is true that both Levys spent significant funds to repair, restore, preserve, and furnish the house and grounds (and add acreage) to the property over the following 80-plus years. But my guess is that all of those expenditures didn’t add up to a figure close to $2.4 million—which would be worth more than $45 million in 2025. 

Levy then told Carroll, disingenuously, that he had “always said [he] would sell Monticello to the Commonwealth of Virginia or to the United States or to an organization similar to that in control of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home.” But, Levy said, “I was not going to be driven to do what I wanted to do all the time and had purposed doing from the very first.” 

It’s true that Jefferson Levy definitely did not like to be “driven” by others to do anything. Still, he had steadfastly and adamantly refused to listen to any suggestion that he sell Monticello to the federal government or any other entity from the time he gained control of it in 1879 until the fall of 1914. That’s when, most likely because of large stock market and real estate losses, he abruptly reversed course, and announced that he would sell the property, including the house’s furnishings, to the federal government for $500,000. 

Levy told Carroll that Cornelius Vanderbilt II once approached him with an offer on Monticello’s front lawn, saying: “Cannot I tempt you to sell [Monticello] with a million dollars? If not enough, name your price.” He said he turned down that offer and “scores” of others, including one from Andrew Carnegie. The Gilden Age industrialist approached Jefferson Levy in Washington, Levy said, and told him: “Any time you want to sell Monticello I’ll buy it and present it to the country.”

Although Vanderbilt and Carnegie conceivably could have made those high-dollar offers to Levy for Monticello, it’s extremely doubtful that “scores” of Gilded Age millionaires  were after him to sell. 

In the interview, Levy (above) offered the startling and hitherto publicly unmentioned news that at the 1912 Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, he was offered the vice-presidential nomination. The offer, he said, came with one caveat—that if he accepted and became VP, he’d donate Monticello to the government after the election. 

Levy turned that offer down, he said, as well as a similar previous one made by William Jennings Bryan.

“What they failed to recognize—all of them—was the fact that perhaps there might be a pride in my own family connected with the ownership,” Levy said.  “Once there was a time when I was wealthy enough to have stood the strain of an absolute gift of Monticello to the country. Then they fought me. Now, when I am approached in a different spirit under conditions which I laid down from the start, it is financially necessary for me to allow others to share in the great gift of the historic landmark to the nation.” 

Jefferson Levy then showed Carroll his right hand, “upon which was a pigeon-blood ruby ring of antique pattern,” the reporter wrote. Levy said the ring had belonged to his uncle, Uriah Levy, and then launched into an exegesis on the Commodore’s naval career and his purchase of Monticello, an account that rang completely true. 

“Monticello was never looked upon by my uncle as an investment,” Jefferson Levy said. “He bought it out of deep admiration for the great Democrat.” 

As he reflected on the pending sale and his family’s long history in America, Levy told Carroll: “The whole trouble started when they tried to force me to sell Monticello, and I fought them and beat them. I am proud of my country, my family and my race. We Levys were the first Jews to land in the New World [actually, other Levys were] and as the republic was founded and expanded, we did our share of the fighting.” 

“That,” Levy said, “should entitle our family at least to some consideration.” 

EVENTS & COMMERCE:  I have a growing number of events scheduled later year, most of them on Lafayette: Idealist General, my newly re-released concise biography of the famed Marquis, and my latest book, The Unlikely War Hero, a slice-of-life biography of the extraordinary Vietnam War story of Doug Hegdahl, the youngest and lowest ranking American prisoner held in Hanoi during the war.

I’m also doing talks, podcasts, and other events for the paperback edition of Lafayette: Idealist General and, of course, Saving Monticello. Many are speaking engagements for historic preservation and other groups. Most are open to the public. For details, go to: marcleepson.com/events

If you’d like to arrange a talk on The Unlikely War Hero, Saving Monticello, Lafayette, or any of my other books, please email me at marcleepson@gmail.com  To order signed copies from my website, go to https://bit.ly/BookOrdering