BGuthrie Photos: VA -- Montpelier Station -- James Madison's Montpelier (visitor centers)

VA -- Montpelier Station -- James Madison's Montpelier (visitor centers):

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[1] MONTVC_060812_03.JPG	[2] MONTVC_060812_04.JPG	[3] MONTVC_060812_08.JPG
[4] MONTVC_060812_10.JPG	[5] MONTVC_060812_12.JPG	[6] MONTVC_060812_14.JPG
[7] MONTVC_060812_19.JPG	[8] MONTVC_060812_22.JPG	[9] MONTVC_060812_25.JPG
[10] MONTVC_060812_28.JPG	[11] MONTVC_060812_34.JPG	[12] MONTVC_060812_42.JPG
[13] MONTVC_060812_46.JPG	[14] MONTVC_060812_50.JPG	[15] MONTVC_060812_54.JPG
[16] MONTVC_060812_60.JPG	[17] MONTVC_060812_63.JPG	[18] MONTVC_060812_68.JPG
[19] MONTVC_060812_72.JPG	[20] MONTVC_060812_79.JPG	[21] MONTVC_060812_85.JPG
[22] MONTVC_060812_89.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. MONTVC_060812_04.JPG: Montpelier's Evolution: The 1760s House: The brick house that President Madison built around 1760 was almost certainly the largest and most elaborate structure in Orange County at that time. The house was about 55 feet long and 33 feet wide. There were eight rooms: four on the first floor and four on the second floor, over an English basement. A passage ran through the center of the first floor, connecting the front of the house with the back. During this period, it was common to use a room for multiple purposes; therefore, the exact use of the rooms is not known. The 1797 Addition: James and Dolley Madison, married in 1794, moved from Philadelphia to Montpelier in 1797. At that time, James began a three-year construction project that resulted in the addition of 30 feet to the north side of the original house. The front portico was also added at that time, to unify the two sections. The addition provided living space for James, his new wife, and her young son. Here, the couple set up housekeeping and entertained their friends. James's parents retained full use of the original section of the house. There is no evidence of an internal connection allowing passage from the 1797 addition to the original section.
2. MONTVC_060812_08.JPG: The 1809-1812 Addition: James and Dolley Madison anticipated a constant flow of family, friends, and even strangers to Montpelier after James's retirement from the presidency in 1817. Therefore, at the beginning of the first term, he initiated a building campaign that resulted in the addition of two one-story wings to the main house. Each wing served as a bedroom -- one for Dolley, and one for his mother, Nelly. In the basement below each bedroom, a kitchen was installed, bringing cooking at Montpelier inside the main house for the first time. The central hall was expanded into a commodious drawing room with an entrance foyer, and a rear portico was added. Madison later had the brick exterior covered with stucco and scored to give the appearance of large stone blocks, making it more in keeping with the architectural style of the day. Only one other house in the county rivaled Montpelier in appraised value -- Governor Barbour's 1822 Barboursville Mansion. The House Today: Between 1844, when Dolley sold the property, and 1900, when William duPont bought it, there were six owners. Research has only begun to establish was changes they made to the house. Two of the alterations that have been identified are: during the Carson ownership (1857-1881), the front portico was changed to its current design, and during the Detrick and Bradley ownership (1881-1900), the marble fireplace in the drawing room was added and the staircases were changed to their current configuration. When William duPont purchased the property, he preserved the basic core of the Madison home while increasing the size from 12 to 55 rooms.
3. MONTVC_060812_10.JPG: A picture of the house as it looked during the DuPont time
4. MONTVC_060812_79.JPG: They're building a new visitor center and the DuPont Gallery here
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Montpelier (James Madison)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Montpelier was the estate of James Madison, fourth President of the United States. It is four miles south of Orange, Virginia and covers some 2,750 acres.

The land, in the Piedmont of Virginia, was acquired by James Madison's grandfather, Ambrose Madison, and his brother-in-law Thomas Chew, in 1723. Ambrose and his family moved to the plantation, then known as Mount Pleasant, in 1732. When Ambrose died only six months later, poisoned, it was said, by three slaves, his wife Frances managed the estate; in time she was assisted by their only son, James, later Colonel Madison. Colonel Madison's first-born son, also James, was born in 1751 at his mother's family estate in Port Conway, but soon moved to Montpelier. He spent his first years here, before moving to a new house built by his father half a mile away. This new house forms the heart of the main house at Montpelier today. Built around 1764, with two stories of brick in Flemish bond, and a low, hipped roof with chimney stacks at both ends.

James, Junior inherited Montpelier after his father's death in 1801 and retired there after his second term as president came to an end in 1817. In 1797, after his first retirement from politics, he added a thirty-foot extension and a Tuscan portico. Single-story flat-roofed extensions were built at either end of the house and a Drawing Room was created out of two of the existing rooms in around 1810. James Madison died in 1836 and is buried in the family cemetery at Montpelier. His widow, Dolley Madison, moved back to Washington, D.C. after his death and sold the estate in 1844.

Montpelier was permanently staffed by an enslaved African population which fluctuated in size but averaged approximately 100 during James Madison's tenure as owner.

After some renovations in the later 1800s (c. 1855 and c. 1880), the house was acquired in 1901 by William and Annie Rogers duPont of the du Pont family. The du Ponts preserved much of the core of the Madison home, gardens, and grounds of Montpelier as a legacy for all Americans while enlarging the house considerably. They added wings that more than doubled the size of the house to 55 rooms. In 1983, their daughter Marion du Pont Scott bequeathed the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Today:

Montpelier is open to paying visitors. A major restoration program was started in October 2003 and is expected to end in early 2008. Montpelier continues to host the annual Montpelier Hunt Races, an autumn steeplechase event started by Marion du Pont Scott and her brother William du Pont, Jr. in 1934. At the entrance to the Montpelier garden is the largest of several Cedars of Lebanon, this one certainly planted during James Madison’s lifetime. Montpelier abuts the James Madison Landmark Forest, a 200-acre stand of old growth forest, one of the largest and best preserved groves of old-growth piedmont forest in the eastern United States.
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