But the buildings of Williamsburg were not at all to his liking. As he wrote in 1781-1782 in Notes on Virginia, "The Capitol is a light and airy structure, with a portico in front of two orders," "The Palace is not handsome without, but it is spacious and commodious within, is prettily situated, and with the grounds annexed to it, is capable of being made an elegant seat." For the college and hospital he had only contempt: they "are rude, mis-shapen piles, which, but that they have roofs, would be taken for brick-kilns." He found the houses of Williamsburg inferior to those of Annapolis (he even measured the superb Harwood-Hammond house) but preferred the gardens of the Virginia town. He lamented the fact that "a workman could scarcely be found here capable of drawing an order. The genius of architecture seems to have shed its maledictions over this land." But he did not despair: "Architecture being one of the fine arts, and as such within the department of a professor of the college . . . perhaps a spark may fall on some young subjects of natural taste, kindle up their genius, and produce a reformation in this elegant and useful art." Before he wrote this, he had made plans for redesigning the Palace and the college.

Jefferson was only twenty-four when he began the design of Monticello, and until he died it was never really out of his thoughts. "All my wishes end," he wrote in 1787, "where I hope my days will end, at Monticello." Like many English gentlemen, Jefferson was a disciple of Palladio, regarding the great sixteenth-century Italian architect as the ultimate authority. Palladio had recommended building on an elevated site, and by the mid-eighteenth century mountain pinnacles and crags were becoming fashionable in romantic literature. But perhaps the splendid views from Monticello enchanted Jefferson. He wrote years later to his beautiful friend, Maria Cosway, describing his mountain top "where nature has spread so rich a mantle under the eye. How sublime to look down into the workhouse of nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, thunder, all fabricated at our feet! and the glorious sun when rising as if out of a distant water, just gilding the tops of the mountains and giving life to all nature." His idea for a classical villa on a mountain top was highly original: even in England only garden towers and temples were built on such eminences.

As early as 1767 Jefferson began studies for Monticello. There are notes and calculations for it at the back of his oldest pocket account book for that year. Until 1770 he was busy with preliminary studies of the plan and elevation of the mansion, using James Gibbs's Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture and Book of Architecture, Robert Morris' Select Architecture, and Palladio's Four Books of Architecture (Leoni's edition of 1715 or 1742, or both).

His first idea was for a house with a center block and flanking wings. The source seems to have been Select Architecture, as one of the oldest drawings extant for Monticello is a tracing he made of Plate 3. Jefferson then experimented in wood and in brick, with a two-story portico and an arcaded first floor, a motif reappearing in 1817 at the University of Virginia in Pavilion VII. It was to become a favorite Virginia house plan, antedating the James Semple house in Williamsburg, which has a similar plan. Jefferson's version (No. 1 and Cover) was of the same type, and after the basement walls were up, he added the octagonal bays to the parlor and the ends of the building (No. 4 and Cover).

Meanwhile work had begun on the first "outchamber" in the autumn of 1769. It is the southwest outbuilding, and the dimensions for it are in the account book of 1767. The stone house was probably begun at this time on Mulberry Row (No. 17). In the summer of 1770 the outchamber was plastered, and on November 26 Jefferson "Moved to Monticello." The following February, in one of the first dated letters from there, he wrote:
"I have lately removed to the mountain from whence this is dated.... I have here but one room, which, like the cobbler's serves me for parlour for kitchen and hall. I may add, for bedchamber and study too.... I have hope, however, of getting more elbow room this summer." He was to need it, for on New Year's Day of 1772 he married. He now decided to suppress the wings of his house in order to retain the fine views (No. 2), and he was thoroughly happy developing his building plans and making time studies amazingly similar to those of modern industry. Throughout the Revolution he pushed the work, and finally, in 1782, the first version of the house was almost finished (No. 4 and Cover). According to the Chevalier de Chastellux it consisted of "one large square pavilion, the entrance of which is by two porticoes, ornamented with pillars." But the Jeffersons were not to enjoy it for long, for on September 6 Martha Jefferson died, leaving her husband disconsolate.

While at work on Monticello, he had made plans also for buildings at Williamsburg and Richmond. No. 9 shows a plan for an octagonal chapel.
The notes for it are headed "Design of a Chapel, the model of the temple of Vesta. Pallad. B. 4. Pl. 38. 39." It probably dates from about 1770, from the evidence of the watermarks, and seems to have been designed for erection at Williamsburg. It was also based upon Select Architecture, Plate 31, "of an octagonal Temple or Chapel, 60 Feet in outer Diameter and the internal 40 Feet."

No. 10 shows his "Plan for an addition to the College of William and Mary, drawn at the request of Ld. Dunmore." It dates probably from 1771 or 1772, and the palace court arrangement seems to have been suggested by Palladio's Palazzo Thiene at Vicenza, Book II, Plate 9, which shows such an enclosed court. Only the foundations for this addition were ever completed.

Nos. 7 and 8 represent Jefferson's ideas for remodeling the Governor's Palace in Williamsburg. Drawn apparently between 1772 and 1781, one is for measurements, and the other, showing changes, also provides for a temple form house with two porticoes. Although he also seems to have made studies for replacing the Palace with a villa rotonda, based upon Palladio's Villa at Vicenza, Book II, Plates 14 and 15, he did not pursue the idea. His prophetic idea for a temple form building, the first in the modern world (with the exception of the small garden temples in England) is a striking example of Jefferson's leadership as one of the innovators of the movement of Romantic Classicism.

In 1776 Jefferson had presented to the House of Delegates a bill for the design of the new capital in Richmond. It was a revolutionary bill which, for the first time, provided separate buildings to house the various branches of the new government. In 1780 it was decided to erect the public buildings, and Jefferson was appointed head of a committee for this purpose. He then drew up plans for enlarging the town with some four hundred new lots, located four to a block, on a gridiron plan (No. 33). Later he believed that yellow fever and other diseases could be prevented by "building our cities on a more open plan. Take, for instance, the chequerboard for a plan. Let the black squares only be building squares, and the white ones be left open, in turf and trees. Every square of houses will be surrounded by four open squares, and every house will front an open square.... The plan of the town ... will be found handsome and pleasant." He also made studies for the Halls of Justice and then began his studies for the Richmond Capitol, as two large plans in the Huntington Library indicate. While the interior was not so formally arranged as it was in the later designs (No. 12), they prove that he had arrived at the conception of a temple form building before he left America and long before he met Clérisseau in France, the architect who helped him with the final design and with the model. Excepting his studies for the Governor's Palace, this idea was entirely new and was not to be used in Europe for a monumental building until the Madeleine was started in Paris in 1807.

Thus both in Williamsburg and in Richmond, before he went abroad in 1784, Jefferson had projected designs for buildings which by "introducing into the State an example of architecture in the classic style of antiquity," as he wrote in his Autobiography, would improve the status of the arts in Virginia. The earlier designs for the Capitol showed a rectangular temple form, with Ionic porticoes and eight columns at either end. Apparently porticoes were also intended for the Halls of Justice. In Nos. 11 and 13 the design is more typically Roman, with only one portico. Some details, drawn in a professional hand than Jefferson's, indicate that Clérisseau's only changes were in the doors and windows and in the panels over them. The French architect also suggested lowering the pitch of the pediment. Jefferson had followed the proportions of Palladio in his detailing, but the model indicates that the wind