Foundation serves up sneak peek of new high-tech history exhibits

Like clockwork each day, Thomas Jefferson recorded the exact temperatures in Albemarle County, and he tracked his expenses to the penny. 

From his obsessive record-keeping to his conflict over being a slaveowner, a new $43 million visitors center at Monticello will allow visitors to enter the life and mind of one of America’s greatest architects of liberty.

And it will tackle its historical topic in distinctly 21st-century fashion.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Jefferson’s home, showcased the Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center on Thursday to a small group of press and dignitaries. The grand opening of the 42,000-square-foot visitors center is scheduled for April 15.

The facility will feature a 15-minute introductory film about the life of Jefferson, galleries that show the architectural components of Monticello, replicas of Jefferson’s possessions and interactive technology that allows visitors to learn more about Jefferson’s travels, accomplishments and famous quotes.

Leslie Greene Bowman, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, said that Monticello was Jefferson’s “lifelong home and dream. This was his laboratory.”

Bowman said that though Jefferson’s house will always be the main attraction, the new visitors center is designed to prepare visitors for “the magnificent house on the top of the hill.”

For many tourists, the film about Jefferson would set the stage.

Jefferson, the nation’s third president and founder of the University of Virginia, was also a self-trained architect.

The film also highlights Jefferson’s ownership of as many as 200 slaves at times, and says that the slaves labored from dusk to dawn, six days a week, to maintain Jefferson’s property and to serve the family. Though Jefferson believed slavery was evil, he remained a slave owner throughout his adult life and said that the abolishment of slavery was a task for another generation.

The new center also features interactive media that allows visitors to dictate which Jeffersonian topics they want to learn more about. Inlaid in the bluestone floor of the Stacy Smith Liss Gallery, for example, are stones with words such as “America,” “education” and “religion,” that will, when stepped upon, bring up famous Jefferson quotes on a projection screen.

Ann Taylor, executive vice president of the foundation, said that while the visitors center maintains a historical focus, advanced technology helps Jefferson’s world come to life for visitors.

Taylor said that the two main reasons people visit Monticello is because they appreciate its historical value and they want to learn more about Jefferson.

The visitors center, which has two green roof buildings, has met some of the highest standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. 

The Griffin Discovery Room, catering to children 6 to 11 years, shows replicas of some of Jefferson’s possessions, such as his bed, which is covered by a silk bedspread lined with fur to keep him warm in winters. Though Jefferson was 6-feet-2-inches tall, his bed was only 6-feet-3-inches long, as he slept propped up because of the belief, common at the time, that it would make breathing easier. 

The new center comes as Monticello has been enjoying an uptick in visitation.

The mountaintop home received 447,514 visitors in 2008, up 1.3 percent from 2007, according to statistics provided by Monticello. That figure does not include the audience for a July 4 naturalization ceremony attended by President George W. Bush.