Virginia Highland House

Highland is a historic house museum at the home of James Monroe, fifth president of the United States of America. Part of Monroe's alma mater, William & Mary, Highland offers guided tours daily and hosts community and private events throughout the year. Highland, formerly Ash Lawn-Highland, located near Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, and adjacent to Thomas Jefferson 's Monticello, was the estate of James Monroe, a Founding Father and fifth president of the United States.

Plan your visit to James Monroe's Highland! Highland offers guided tours daily and hosts community and private events throughout the year. In this space the events of the past mingle with the voices of the present and the recollections of some of Highland's descendant advisors. 1818 Basement Rooms - The rooms below the 1818 Guesthouse explore Highland's place in the agricultural history of Virginia, and the individual stories of enslaved people and landowners.

1818 Guesthouse Highland's new interior exhibits are designed as a self-paced experience that weaves the story of Highland's free and enslaved residents into the same narratives. Focusing on Monroe's presidential years, the exhibits show how Highland is a lens for understanding early American history and its present. The Virginia-Highland Tour of Homes showcases the neighborhood's most charming residences, each adorned in festive holiday décor.

From historic bungalows to elegant revival styles, the tour offers a rare peek inside these architectural treasures while supporting the Virginia. Highland initiated archaeological and architectural research in 2014 that discovered the buried remains of Monroe's main house and correctly identified the standing house as an evolved structure built from an 1818 presidential guesthouse. Highland interprets the period of Monroe's public career, including the lives of enslaved African Americans who lived on the property.

Acquired by William & Mary (Monroe's alma mater) in 1974, Highland offers tours, hosts community and private events, and features a robust museum shop including a Virginia Artisans Room. James Monroe's Highland is the home of the fifth U.S. President, and a historic site encompassing 535 acres in Central Virginia.

Open year-round, Highland offers guided tours, packages for tour groups and school visits, and augmented reality experiences of the landscape. James Monroe's Highland is a historic site with a new story to tell. America's fifth president lived at Highland with his family, including wife Elizabeth Kortright Monroe, from 1799 to 1823.