A Sunday at James Madison’s Montpelier

Sometime last week, I had decided that today was going to be the day that I would go to James Madison’s Montpelier. I figured that with wrapping up research during this week and with getting ready to go home to Massachusetts next week, I wouldn’t have any time to go back and see how much the place had changed since I had last seen it in its stripped down, down-to-the-brick form undergoing renovation two years ago. It was certainly a real treat to see the hard work of so many people at the Montpelier Foundation finally starting to come to a real fruition.

The interior of the house was still in an in-progress state, but certainly far from where it was when I had last been there. Most of the walls were covered, and there was even artwork hanging in some of rooms. They even had a few more pieces of furniture that Madison had once owned – such as one of his bookshelves from his library room. This time around, they also walked us out onto the rooftop patio on the right side of the building, which is something that I had wanted to do on my last visit but it wasn’t open for touring at the time. I had also noticed on the outside of the house that the last portion of the du Pont additions had finally been demolished, which was cool.

Also on my little trip, I visited some of the rescued Thoroughbreds up at the Montpelier barn. Apparently, since I was last there the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation had set up shop there and has been very active in caring for these horses and finding them each a better home. I was so happy to see this, and I really wished that I could’ve taken one of them home but I don’t think my landlady would like that too much. Or Toronado, for that matter. 😛

After I visited the horses, I walked down to the graveyard to pay respects to Mr. and Mrs. Madison and then headed home. It was such an awesome trip, and I hope that I can come back a third time (!) when the Foundation has aquired more of Madison’s furniture and the house is finally completely transformed into what it was when James and Dolley had lived there.

Pictures of the Day (and even more on Flickr):

Enjoying some quality reading time with James and Dolley.

Goofing around with Jeanie, a rescued Thoroughbred.