Even as late as the 20th century, Thomas Jefferson wasn’t known as a self-trained architect. Most of his known buildings were attributed to others and even his heroic role at University of Virginia wasn’t fully understood.

He began studying architecture while a college student at William & Mary and pursued it all his life, sticking to one Roman Revival style that’s now called Jeffersonian Classicism. Few people know him as an experienced builder who first took on the role of architect and builder at Monticello I, then after five years’ experience in Paris and Europe, rebuilt it bigger and better. He designed a few built houses for friends, but his drawings show that he drew hundreds of designs on paper that were never executed.

Jefferson started construction of his retreat home, Poplar Forest, in 1806 while he was still occupied in Washington as president. He planned to begin using it in 1809 when he retired from public life, although once he started using the house, it took him 14 years of occupancy to finish it. It was almost completed in 1823 when he turned it over to his grandson Francis Eppes; about the time Jefferson died in 1826, Eppes did the final touches, finally finishing it.

This retreat home, so far off the public radar that it only came to be known during the late 20th century, needed some attention. Travis McDonald was the director of architectural restoration at Poplar Forest, a process that took 34 years. He’ll be speaking at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture on October 30 about his book, “Poplar Forest: Thomas Jefferson’s Villa Retreat.”

After the house was rescued in 1983, McDonald was hired in 1989 to start the restoration of Poplar Forest. In what can only be called optimism, the original board members held a fundraising campaign that featured a poster saying that restoration would take the two years from 1984-1986, so a professional team of staff, consultants and advisors was put in place. “We cautioned the board that we couldn’t say the house could be restored until investigation revealed enough evidence for an honest restoration,” McDonald remembers. “The initial 1990-1992 investigation concluded that that was indeed possible.”

That’s when the real work began. The restoration process took 34 years, ending in 2023 when McDonald retired.

It was also unique because not only were the 1840s and 1940s renovations — five bathrooms, kitchens, mechanical systems — removed so that the house was spatially back to the original, the sequence of restoring all the Jefferson elements followed his own historical sequence of how he finished it year by year.

“This was one of the most idealistic projects of its kind in the country since there were no artificial deadlines and the board let the professional team decide on the process and progress,” McDonald explains. “So, visitors were actually seeing a Jeffersonian construction project with the same materials and the same techniques.”

All the interior woodwork was done by hand using old tools and usually in front of visitors in the house, much like Jefferson’s workers did when he lived there. After a few years, people stopped asking when it would be done since the journey unfolding was so exciting to witness.

Wisely, the advisory panel of restoration experts made the decision to use the restoration process as an education and interpretive event for the public who had been coming through the house from day one. The other critical intent was that this wasn’t just another museum house restoration, and that there would be no staff offices in the house and no original furniture.

“This was a major advantage over other museum houses because the house itself would be treated as a large artifact and did not have to fight the temperature and humidity battles that people and furniture required,” says McDonald. “It was accepted that the house could never be fully furnished since that information didn’t exist. What was known could be replicated as reproductions, and windows opened in good weather for example, making it feel like a real house and not a museum.”

People had wanted a book on the restoration for many years, but McDonald felt he had to get finished to understand it and to contemplate its meaning. He had two books in mind, one a more academic architectural history, and one the story of the restoration. He’s currently writing the second. “I would say that it took about three years of drafts and revisions before it was published and this was still when the final stages of restoration were taking place,” he says. “I used the unused 1857 slave quarter building on site as my writing retreat.”

During the investigative process, it was discovered that Jefferson’s three biracial sons with Sally Hemmings had worked at Poplar Forest for ten years. They were apprenticed to their uncle John Hemings at an early age to learn the art of joinery (finished woodworking). John started making things for the Poplar Forest house in 1810 in the Monticello shops but most of the finishing work, inside and out, was done on site and with the help of his nephew apprentices.

Jefferson’s granddaughter said he came to Poplar Forest to read, write and think. It was there he conceived and supervised his last big project: UVA. Besides family and some neighbors, he only invited two foreign friends to stay with him there.

“It was his most perfect work of architecture, but he never showed it off to his peers because it was too personal, I think,” McDonald says. “He was really one of the most experienced builders in America, starting with Monticello in 1769 when he was a bachelor, and building or rebuilding things all his life.”

“Poplar Forest: Thomas Jefferson’s Villa Retreat” with Travis McDonald will be held on Oct. 30 at noon at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture. Tickets