Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XX, Number 8 August 2023
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving, never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
‘READ SAVING MONTICELLO’: One of the most rewarding aspects of having researched, written, and spoken widely about Saving Monticello for all these years has been getting to know (in person and online) descendants of Uriah and Jefferson Monroe Levy and of Samuel Nunez, UPL’s great-great grandfather.
Most recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Nancy Hoffman, a grandniece of Jefferson Levy, and her son Rob for the first time in July. They had just made a pilgrimage to Monticello and stopped by for a short visit here in the Northern Virginia Piedmont before heading to Annapolis, Maryland, for a tour of the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Nancy Hoffman, who was born in 1930, is a grandniece of Jefferson Levy and a granddaughter of JML’s brother, fellow lawyer and real estate business partner Louis Napoleon Levy. Nancy’s mother, Alma Hendricks Levy Bookman, was one of L. Napoleon Levy’s four daughters.
Nancy—like her great-uncle Jefferson Levy, her grandfather, and their uncle Uriah P. Levy—lives in New York City. Rob Hoffman was visiting from his home in Michigan.
The day before I had let the folks
at Monticello know that the Hoffmans were on their way to the mountaintop for a
visit, and the staff gave them a warm welcome. Their guide on the house tour “gave
a good spiel,” Nancy later told me in an email, “and he dutifully included the
Levys. He even admitted us to the dome [room] and the upstairs [bed] chambers.”
After their special house tour, Rob and Nancy took a walk around the grounds and popped in on another tour guide, Dick Ruffin as he was concluding a tour in the post-1809 kitchen located in Monticello’s South Pavilion near the house.
Nancy said that not long after they joined the group as the tour was ending, Dick Ruffin “launched right into the Levy ownership, unprompted.” After he did, Nancy said, “we revealed our connection and he was very excited to have the family on the premises.” So excited—and happy—that the guide exclaimed, “Oh, Hallelujah!” when Rob told him that he and his mother were Levy descendants.
Nancy told the group that she remembers the first time she came to Monticello for a visit when she was ten years old, and was “mesmerized” when she learned that her mother and her sisters played in the Dome Room of “Uncle Jeff’s house” when they visited as young children a generation earlier.
Rob posted a four-minute video of Dick Ruffin (below, in the light blue shirt) ending his tour talking about Uriah purchasing Monticello in 1834 and Jefferson Levy selling the property to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation a hundred years ago, in December 1923.
It includes
his reaction to meeting the Hoffmans and his recommendation to them and the group
to “Read Saving Monticello. It’s a book about Uriah Phillips Levy” and
the family’s stewardship of Monticello.
The Hoffmans’ visit to the Naval Academy the following day was “extremely special, too,” Nancy Hoffman told me. Jan Zlockie, the administrator of the Friends of the Jewish Chapel (the nonprofit that raised the funds to build the Levy Center and Chapel), arranged for them to drive onto and explore the Academy’s grounds.
“Then we went to Friday night services at the chapel (below) and everyone we met bent over backwards to show us their large collection of Uriah memorabilia.”
At the end of the evening, David Hoffberger, the USNA’s Chapel Facilities Manager, had a surprise for the Hoffmans. He “took us to a closet inside the temple,” Nancy said. From there, he gave us a piece of a wooden fence from Uriah’s time at Monticello. We were thrilled.”
That rare artifact of the Levys’ ownership of Monticello is
now on display in Nancy’s Greenwich Village townhouse, “near my oldest family object,
an advertisement for Jonas Phillips’ Philadelphia Vendue Store from 1776,” she said.
THE HUNTLAND
BOOK: The University of Virginia Press will be distributing and
marketing my next book, Huntland: The
Historic Virginia Country House, the Property, and Its Owners, which will
be coming out the first week of September.
It’s
my tenth book and my second house history, along the lines of Saving Monticello. Huntland, in
Middleburg, Virginia, was built in 1834, and certainly has lots of history,
memorable owners and visitors (including Lyndon Johnson when he was Senate
Majority Leader and Vice President), and a triumphant twenty-first century
historic preservation story. Stay tuned for more details.
Here’s the link for the U-Va. Press Fall Catalog with more info about the book: https://bit.ly/U-VaPressHuntland
EVENTS: I’m in full-time writing mode on another book, a slice-of-life biography of Doug Hegdahl, the youngest and lowest-ranking American held as a POW in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. It will be published by Stackpole Books, most likely next fall. As a result, I don’t have any book talks scheduled for August.
For details on events later this year, check the Events page on my website: https://bit.ly/NewAppearances
GIFT IDEAS: For a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello, please e-mail marcleepson@gmail.com
I also have
a few as-new, unopened hardcover copies, along with a good selection of new
copies of my other books: Flag: An
American Biography; Desperate Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed; Flag: An American Biography; and Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars
of Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.
