The graveyard began with a boyhood promise. Thomas Jefferson and Dabney Carr, a close friend and later brother-in-law, would often go to Monticello Mountain to read in the shade of their favorite oak. So attached were they to this tree that they pledged whoever died first would be buried at its foot. Tragically, Jefferson had to fulfill the boyhood promise when Dabney died in 1773 at the young age of 30.

With only a few in-ground burial spaces remaining, The Monticello Association hired us to document the Graveyard’s history and design its expansion. The Association’s primary design goal is to have the entire graveyard appear as one complete and integrated place, with subtle distinctions illustrating its different phases of growth and evolution.