Regrettably, even I have yet to visit Monticello, the estate of third U.S. president Thomas Jefferson, who spent more than forty years designing, dismantling, and reimagining this "essay in architecture," as he called it.  The property is regarded a national treasure -- both for its historical significance and beauty. It's perched atop a lofty hill in Albemarle County, Virginia, not far from Jefferson's birthplace of Shadwell.  Franklin Delano Roosevelt once wrote, "Monticello speaks to me as an expression of the personality of its builder."  Indeed, if you were to pick the president with the widest range of hobbies and abilities, Jefferson would have to be in the Top 3. He was a writer, inventor, philosopher, architect, scientist, scholar, gardener, statesman, founder of the University of Virginia, viticulturalist, and the list goes on. Unlike any of the other 43 men to take office, Jefferson was a polymath -- a true intellectual and Renaissanc...

And that includes mine, as I have yet to visit Mount Vernon , the plantation house of George Washington, first President of the United States, and his wife Martha Washington. The estate is located on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia, near Alexandria, across from Prince George's County, Maryland. The mansion, which is undoubtedly the centerpiece of the estate, is made of wood in a loose Palladian style, and was gradually constructed by George Washington between 1758 and 1778. It occupies the site of a one and a half story farmhouse built by George Washington's father Augustine in 1735. When Augustin moved his family to the property in 1735, it was known as Little Hunting Creek Plantation. In the early 1740s, during the War of Jenkins' Ear, Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s eldest half-brother, served as a militia officer at the Battle of Cartagena. Lawrence inherited the Little Hunting Creek Plantation in 1743 and changed the name to ...

Chances are, you or someone you know has been to New York City at least once. But can you say that you've actually visited the oldest residence in the state of New York? Built in 1649 in Southold, New York, the aptly named Old House is just that and represents one of the few surviving examples of English domestic architecture in America. It was originally built by John Budd on land near what came to be known as Budd Pond. Budd's daugher Anna and her husband Benjamin Horton were deeded the house in 1658 as a wedding present. The house was moved in 1661 to its present location at the village of Cutchogue, where it sits alongside a 19th-century schoolhouse and carriage house, as well as an old library and 18th-century farmhouse. Also renowned for once housing a Loyalist politician named Parker Wickham during the American Revolution, the house was restored in 1940 and again in 1968 - seven years after being declared a National Historic Landmark. Would you ever consider visi...