Jefferson, Latrobe, and the Playgrounds of Charlottesville, Virginia

My recent jaunt to Virginia was marked by a lovely visit to Monticello and stops at every playground in Charlottesville. Since the weather was unseasonably cool, our historic site visiting was tolerated quite well by the younger set, and Jefferson’s lawn at the University of Virginia quickly became the stage for tumbling, rolling, and race running (these are not new activities for this site by any means. But we were all sober). As I contemplated the Rotunda at the head of the lawn, I thought again about the connection between Benjamin Henry Latrobe, America’s first professional architect, my home state of Kentucky, and Thomas Jefferson.

The north front of the Rotunda at UVA.

Latrobe and Jefferson were great friends, and it was the architect who suggest a domed central  building to crown the lawn of the Academical Village at UVA. Jefferson used the Pantheon in Rome as his model, and construction began in 1826. The building would not be completed until after Jefferson’s death in 1826 – some six years after Latrobe died of yellow fever. The Rotunda housed a library on the upper floor, and classes on the lower floors.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, by Charles Willson Peale – Impressions Respecting New Orleans: Diary & Sketches, 1818-1820, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5062754

Although best known, perhaps, for designing the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC (Latrobe was hired by Jefferson for this task in 1803), I first “met” Latrobe through one of his surviving houses, which is located in Lexington, Kentucky. The Pope Villa, designed for Senator John and Eliza Pope, was built between 1811 and 1812.

It looked much different when I first encountered it as a graduate student at the University of Kentucky – centuries of changes and updates had almost obscured Latrobe’s elegant – and radical – work. The house Latrobe designed was just more student housing, until a fire in 1987 that revealed Latrobe’s original design.

The south face of the Rotunda.

Fire too, impacted the Rotunda. In 1895, only sections of the exterior walls were left of the Rotunda and its 1853 Annex (designed by Robert Mills). Th firm of McKim, Mead and White of New York rebuilt the Rotunda.  Stanford White added a new entrance portico and terrace to the north, along with additional wings (in Jefferson’s original designs) on the south side.

I was greatly cheered by this sight – my own professional path was shaped by visits to historic houses, forts, and battlefields, with plenty of window peeping and entreaties to be allowed to go to the attic or basement…

Fortunately, no fires broke out the day of our visit and we made it to naptime only slightly thirsty and weary. I don’t know how much my little people appreciated the architecture, but exposure is key, right?