Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the
book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor -
Marc Leepson
Volume XXIII, Number 10 October 2026
Nor is replicating Thomas Jefferson’s Essay in Architecture
anything new. I just discovered that the official Virginia Pavillion at the
spectacular 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis—also known as the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition as it commemorated the 100th anniversary of that seminal 1803 event
in American history—consisted of a full-sized Monticello replica.
Calling the building “one of the most interesting features” of the Exposition, Richmond Times-Dispatch correspondent John C. Small, reporting on the Exposition’s opening in April, noted that the replica was “particularly appropriate” because Thomas Jefferson “was not only the writer of the Declaration of Independence, and afterwards president of the United States, but it was during his administration and on his initiative that negotiations with the French government” that “the Louisiana territory was ceded to the United States.”
You can’t argue with those words.
Monticello replicas
around the country—some commercial buildings, but most private residences—include
a one-third-scale building at Monticello Vineyards in Napa, California, built
in 1984; the one-time headquarters of the First National Bank of Monticello
(Indiana) built in 1974 in time for the nation’s bicentennial; and an exact,
multi-million-dollar exterior replica with a three-car garage in the rear built
by the founder of the Friendly’s restaurant chain, S. Prestley Blake, and his
wife Helen in 2014, which I wrote about in this newsletter some years ago.
Then then there’s Zeta Psi fraternity house (below), a
block from the Central Grounds (aka, the main campus) of the University of
Virginia in Charlottesville.
The Zete house has a connection to Fiske Kimball,
Monticello’s first Director of Restoration, and the subject of last month’s
newsletter. Kimball and Voorhees met at the University of Michigan where the
former was working on his PhD and teaching, and where Voorhees was an undergrad
and then a graduate student in architecture.
Kimball subsequently hired Voorhees to teach at the
University of Virginia when he was the head of what later became the U-Va.
School of Architecture.
A 1928 history of the fraternity reports that when Voorhees was searching for ideas for a design for the Zeta Psi house, Kimball happened to walk into the room and insist that he look at Thomas Jefferson’s architectural drawings for Monticello. That chance encounter, the story goes, sparked Voorhees to come up with the replica design. That story, replete with dialogue, is apocryphal, but most likely contains a grain of truth.
The house on the small mountain sits in a rural area about four miles northwest of downtown Charlottesville in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. Kimball intended to call the house “Tusculum,” but the name Shak Mountain stuck. The mountain is named for the land’s early owners, the Shackelford family.
The Kimballs never lived there permanently, though, because of his day job. From 1925-55, he served as the director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the City of Brotherly Love, where the couple spent most of their time. They visited Shak Mountain regularly, though, including during the holiday season and for two weeks in June.
The retirement plan did not come to
fruition, though, as Marie Kimball died on March 2, 1955, before her husband
retired, and Fiske Kimball died five months later.
They willed the property to the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, which soon sold it to a Charlottesville architect, and
it’s been a private residence ever since.
Coda: Kimball’s “small brick temple”
at Shack Mountain, as the National Trust nomination puts it, cost about $20,000
to build; the land cost $4,000 in the Depression year of 1935. As of this
writing, the Shak Mountain property, which now includes a furnished lower
lever, terraced gardens, a small swimming pool, and a garden house, is on the
market .The asking price: $4,950,000.
EVENTS & COMMERCE: I am
scheduling events for the rest of the year and 2027, most of them on Lafayette:
Idealist General and Saving Monticello. I’m also doing talks,
podcasts, and other events for all of my books. They’re listed on this page on
my website: marcleepson.com/events
If you’d like to arrange a talk, podcast appearance, or
other event on any of my books, feel free to email me at marcleepson@gmail.com
