Rooms with a View: New Monticello boss opens rarely seen rooms
Monticello was designed for the pleasure and architectural curiosity of its owner, but as a new tour and exhibit will show, it was also designed for the enslaved workers who moved about the house relatively unseen, serving food, changing linens, and emptying chamber pots.
On Tuesday, May 25, Monticello boss Leslie Greene Bowman and staff gave the press a sneak peek at rooms that have never been opened to the public. It’s all part of a new “behind the scenes” tour that will launch June 11, accompanied by a new exhibit in the cellar level called “Crossroads,” all to shed light on the intersections between Jefferson, his family and guests, and the enslaved workers.
“We’re trying to make Monticello a more lively and entertaining experience,” says Susan Stein, Monticello’s senior curator.
Indeed, during Tuesday’s tour, reporters were led through the cellar complex to the to-be-restored “office,” a sort of staging area where food was carried before being served upstairs in the dining room.
For an additional $15 over the base tour rate of $22, visitors will now be able to climb as many as 75 very steep and narrow stairs to the third floor— definitely not recommended for the frail, the obese, or those carrying small children. The expanded tour opens the second and third floors, where various guest and family rooms are on display, as well as the restored Dome Room.
On the second floor, (more)