Monticello

Thomas Jefferson spent more than forty years designing, building, tearing down and rebuilding his house on this 260 m hilltop in the Southwest Mountains — and the result is still the most instantly recognisable private home in America, stamped on the back of the nickel since 1938.

The neoclassical villa is a self-portrait in brick: skylights, an alcove bed open on two sides, a seven-day clock, dumbwaiters hidden in the fireplace. Guided house tours run about 45 minutes and the interior is largely furnished with original pieces. Just as important is what surrounds it — the vegetable terrace, the ornamental gardens, and Mulberry Row, where the site now tells the story of the roughly 150 enslaved people who worked the plantation and made Jefferson's world possible.

Practical: timed house tickets (around $22, more for specialty tours) and a shuttle from the visitor center; allow at least three hours if you want the house, the gardens and the walk back down. Monticello is a National Historic Landmark and, together with the University of Virginia, the only private house in the United States inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.