In Poplar Forest: Thomas Jefferson’s Villa Retreat, Travis C. McDonald demonstrates that, even if he had never entered politics, Jefferson would be regarded as one of the greatest pioneer architects in early America. Here, in this work of a lifetime, McDonald has produced a definitive study of Jefferson’s retirement retreat, Poplar Forest. Like so much else in Jefferson’s life, McDonald reveals that his retirement villa was fraught with contradictions, with much of the skilled workmanship being conducted by his unacknowledged African American sons and extended family. It is at the same time a work of greatness.

McDonald's book recounts the remarkable story of Jefferson and Poplar Forest in clear, well-organized prose. McDonald takes a bewildering array of sources, including the minutiae of construction details, and weaves a story that is fascinating, informative, and never boring.

Poplar Forest is a gem of a building with a long history as a site of slavery, as one of Jefferson’s essays in architecture, and as a restoration project. McDonald’s book chronicles the restoration in impressive detail and recounts the long campaign of architectural investigation, archaeology, landscape study, and documentary research that made it possible. . . Overall, Poplar Forest is a benchmark of the restoration of Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. It takes measure of the three-decade-long project and reports what is new from the historical record, the history of the building, and the process of bringing it into the present. McDonald has revealed the many reasons Poplar Forest is historically significant and how it now stands as a landmark of historic preservation as well.

By closely examining one of Jefferson’s architectural works—in this case Poplar Forest, which McDonald calls Jefferson’s most private building—it offers a deeper understanding of the man’s private self as well as his architecture . . . It encompasses much of Jefferson’s education as an architect and builder, his underlying theories about domestic architecture, and the design and construction of Monticello, Poplar Forest, and the University of Virginia. The author delves into the concept of a retreat in the early nineteenth century and shows how Jefferson used Poplar Forest after he finally retired from public life in 1809. McDonald also interweaves references to many of the people who built Poplar Forest, both free and enslaved; these include the enslaved joiner John Hemmings, who was the half brother of Sally Hemings and produced most of Poplar Forest’s windows, doors, and neoclassical ornamentation. The result is a work that expands beyond Poplar Forest into a comprehensive exploration of Jefferson’s domestic architecture.