A Tuscan portico..............like Tuscany.............a region in Italy..............where the Etruscans lived...............



Phase 2 (1797–1800) of construction began in 1797, after the son James Madison returned to Montpelier with his new wife Dolley Madison. He was then 39 and she was a young widow with a child. At this time Madison added a thirty-foot extension and a Tuscan portico to the house. Next, he directed construction of single-story flat-roofed extensions at either end of the house; these provided space for the separate household of the newlyweds James and Dolley Madison. Madison's widowed mother Frances still resided in the house following the death of her husband, James, Sr., in 1801.^[7]