High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Monticello is a National Historic Landmark just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia; it is also, at his direction, the site of Jefferson's burial place. The estate has been owned and operated, as a museum and educational institution, by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation since 1923.