A compelling account of the 90-year stewardship of Monticello that began with its purchase by Commodore Uriah P. Levy eight years after Jefferson’s death. The story continues through the seizure of the house by the Confederacy during the Civil War, a lengthy ownership dispute, a period of "desolation and ruin," the restoration efforts of Uriah’s nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy, numerous attempts to have the federal government take over the property, and the 1923 sale to the newly formed Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. Paper, 256 pages.