Ash Lawn Highland, Virginia

In 1793, James Monroe, who later became the fifth president of the United States, and his wife purchased 1,000 acres next to Thomas Jefferson’s place, Monticello, and eventually amassed a 3,500-acre plantation called Highland. Though they owned other properties as well, this was their principal residence from 1799 to 1823. Subsequent owners called it Ash Lawn, and opened it to the public in 1931. It was donated to the College of William and Mary in 1974, which has operated it as a historic site since then. Recent excavations led to an announcement, in 2015, that the existing house, carefully restored and thought to have been the Monroe’s primary residence, was actually likely just a guest house. A much larger foundation was uncovered in front of it from a building which probably had burned down after the Monroes sold the property. The history of the place is now being rewritten. During his presidency (1817 to 1825) Monroe began work on a grand mansion closer to Washington DC, at Oak Hill, a property he inherited from his uncle in 1808. He retired there in 1825. In 1830 he sold Oak Hill and all of his properties due to financial difficulties, and moved to New York City to live with his daughter. Monroe died there the next year, on the 4th of July, the third president, after Jefferson and Adams, to die on the nation's birthday.