From 1806-1870, Albemarle’s poor, sick, and orphaned lived and labored here.

The Duke family hosted large barbecues for decades on a plot directly behind the Law School.

The Dukes enslaved a number of men, women and children, who lived and worked at Sunnyside. Many of them, like Caesar Young, were locally renowned for their barbecue and Brunswick stew following Emancipation.

An existing Gothic-revival house was home to the Duke family for 100 years. Quarters for enslaved workers and a detached kitchen once existed alongside the house.

In 1999, the Rivanna Trail Foundation cleared the trail behind the Law School, making the historic landscape accessible.

Confederate soldiers wintered in the North Grounds woods during the Civil War.

After the Civil War, the Duke family co-founded the Monticello Wine Company and grew grapes for this consortium at Sunnyside.

The Monacan people, the traditional custodians of the land in and around Charlottesville, were pushed westward by disease and English colonization in the early 1700s. Their descendants continue to live in the area, particularly in Amherst County.

In 1963, the University of Virginia purchased the Duke tract to construct the Law, JAG, and Business schools.