Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built
by Marc Leepson
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Platforms
Windows Vista / XP / 2000, Mac OS X, Sony Reader Features
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Availability:
Download Now Price: $25.00
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Platforms
Windows 98+, Tablet PC, Pocket PC 2003 Features
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Availability:
Download Now Price: $25.00
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Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built Summary
| When Thomas Jefferson died on the Fourth of July 1826 -- the nation's fiftieth birthday -- he was more than $100,000 in debt. Forced to sell thousands of acres of his lands and nearly all of his furniture and artwork, in 1831 his heirs bid a final goodbye to Monticello itself. The house their illustrious patriarch had lovingly designed in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, his beloved "essay in architecture," was sold to the highest bidder. Saving Monticello offers the first complete post-Jefferson history of this American icon and reveals the amazing story of how one Jewish family saved the house that became a family home to them for 89 years -- longer than it ever was to the Jeffersons. With a dramatic narrative sweep across generations, Marc Leepson vividly recounts the turbulent saga of this fabled estate. Twice the house came to the brink of ruin, and twice it was saved, by two different generations of the Levy family. United by a fierce love of country, they venerated the Founding Fathers for establishing a religiously tolerant and democratic nation where their family had thrived since the founding of the Georgia colony in 1733, largely free of the persecutions and prejudices of the Old World. Monticello's first savior was the mercurial U.S. Navy Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, a colorful and controversial sailor, celebrated for his successful campaign to ban flogging in the Navy and excoriated for his stubborn willfulness. Prompted in 1833 by the Marquis de Lafayette's inquiry about "the most beautiful house in America," Levy discovered that Jefferson's mansion had fallen into a miserable state of decay. Acquiring the ruined estate and committing his considerable resources to its renewal, he began what became a tumultuous nine-decade relationship between his family and Jefferson's home. |
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eBooks > Titles > Authors > History > World > Marc Leepson > Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built