Thomas Jeffersons childhood home in Virginia lists for record $17M for the first time in 100 years

The Virginia estate where a 2-year-old Thomas Jefferson first learned to read is up for grabs — and it will cost a buyer $17 million to own a slice of the third president’s earliest memories.Historic Tuckahoe, a 557-acre spread hugging the James River along the Goochland-Henrico county line, has come up for sale for the first time in nearly 100 years.Tuckahoe carries National Historic Landmark status and sits on the National Register of Historic Places.

Assessed by Goochland and Henrico counties at just over $13.2 million, the $17 million ask would mark a new high-water mark for the region should it sell for that sum.Murdoch Matheson of Frank Hardy Sotheby’s International Realty is handling the listing on behalf of the Thompson family, who have kept watch over the property since the 1930s.The five-bedroom main house dates back farther than the nation itself.Construction began in 1733 under William Randolph, with the center hall and south wing added roughly seven years later, forming an unusual H-shaped layout that architectural historians consider one of a kind among surviving colonial homes.It stands as the last Randolph family home still located on its original footprint, according to the listing description.Jefferson’s connection to the property began in 1745, when he moved in as a toddler alongside his parents, Peter and Jane Jefferson, who had been named guardians of the recently orphaned Randolph children. He spent the next seven years there, receiving his first formal schooling in a one-room schoolhouse his father built on the grounds, a structure still standing today.

That schoolhouse features a domed ceiling that, according to the listing, gave the future architect of Monticello his first brush with classical dome design.The Thompsons called their stewardship of the estate a source of pride as they prepare to hand it off. “It has been a privilege for our family to serve as the stewards of Tuckahoe for nearly a century,” the family said in a ...