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Portrait of Frederick Law Olmsted in 1893

The Design Legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted

To anyone who gardens, enjoys walking through nature, is conservation-minded or likes to get off of the grid, Frederick Law Olmsted’s name should ring a bell. Often called the “Father of American Landscape Architecture”, he was a titan among those who designed with nature, and an iconoclast during an industrial age that was built upon the grid. With his longtime partner, Calvert Vaux, he designed New York City’s Central Park from 1857 to 1876. He co- designed the Columbian Exposition World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893 with architect Daniel Burnham. He was a vigorous supporter of the conservation of natural areas when land for National Parks was being acquired by the government. He wrote vivid accounts of the antebellum south during the 1850’s, denouncing southern culture.

He left a lasting imprint all over the North America, and especially along Route 1. This trip is meant to give you a look at some of Olmsted’s most famous places, as well as to see those that may inform you about his career and his design principles. It will also take you to places where his design intentions were not fully realized.

A future trip may feature the work of Olmsted’s two sons, Frederick, Jr. and John Charles Olmsted, who continued his Landscape Architecture practice, after Olmsted Sr. became too senile to work in 1895 at age 73.

Itinerary

	US Capitol Grounds Washington, DC 20004, USA
	Smithsonian National Zoological Park
	Pinehurst
	Sudbrook Park, Maryland - Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
	Cadwalader Park
	Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Seaside Park
	Seawall at Seaside Park in Bridgeport, CT - Then & Now
	Willowbrook Cemetery
	Larchmont Manor Park
	The Fens in Boston, MA - October, 2018
	The Arnold Fortune: How Whale Money Bought Trees on Boston’s Emerald Necklace
	Central Park

US Capitol Grounds

Washington, DC 20004, USA

Smithsonian National Zoological Park

From the National Zoo website: “In 1889 President Grover Cleveland officially signed an act of congress into law creating the National Zoological Park for “the advancement of science and the instruction and recreation of the people.” Two years later, the animals who had been living on the National Mall had a new home. Frederick Law Olmsted, the premiere architect of the day, designed the Zoo within Rock Creek Park in northwest Washington, D.C., which officially opened in 1891.”

Pinehurst

What is now “Mecca” for most North American golfers had humble beginnings as a winter retreat in the sandhills of North Carolina.

Sudbrook Park, Maryland - Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted

Olmsted's plan from 1890

Entrance Bridge to Sudbrook Park, 1890

Entrance bridge in 2022 (Google Maps)

An original home. Image from September, 2022

Historic Marker near the entrance bridge

Western Maryland RR station in 1890

Western Maryland RR timetable from 1955

During the 1850s, James Howard McHenry purchased about 850 acres in Pikesville, MD, just outside of Baltimore, and named it “Sudbrook Estate”. McHenry contracted with American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted in 1876 to design a resort on his land. Shortly thereafter, he got the Western Maryland Railroad to provide...

Cadwalader Park

The City of Trenton purchased the Ellarslie Mansion in the 1880’s, along with about 100 acres of estate land. The Mansion now serves as the Trenton History and Fine Arts Museum. Frederick Law Olmsted was hired by the City to design the park landscape, which prompted the proponents of Trenton to call it “Trenton’s Central Park”, even though it lies well west of the city center.

Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in Seaside Park

The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial was dedicated in August, 1876, to 180 men from the city of Bridgeport that gave their lives for the United States during the Civil War, 1861-1865. The Memorial was the first major monument to be erected in Seaside Park. The bronze sculptures on the Memorial...

Seawall at Seaside Park in Bridgeport, CT - Then & Now

In 1867, plans for a seawall and a driving track and walkway were made and drawings for the park were obtained from Frederick Law Olmsted whose firm completed the work. Olmsted’s design for New York’s Central Park won in a competition held nine years earlier. Circus showman and Bridgeport mayor P.T. Barnum...

Willowbrook Cemetery

First planned in the 1840s, Willowbrook has a who’s who of Westport’s prominent families interred on its grounds. Frederick Law Olmstead was hired in 1876 to finally complete the stalled design for land development.

Larchmont Manor Park

World famous steamship tycoon Edward Knight Collins (born 1802) won the estate at 18 Elm Street at auction and vacationed there for twenty years. Having built the first American steamships to cross the Atlantic in 1850, Collins became one of the richest men in New York and one of the most important people to have lived in Larchmont.

He added a ballroom (torn down in 1890) and built the two-story front porch. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed the grounds, which are no longer evident. Because the house was on a small hill with larch trees, Collins named the estate Larchmont.

The Fens in Boston, MA - October, 2018

The Back Bay Fens, designed in the 1870's by Frederick Law Olmsted links Boston's "Emerald Necklace" to the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood. You can walk through the Fens to get from downtown Boston to Fenway Park. In 1941, at the outbreak of United States involvement in World War II, Bostonians planted a...

The Arnold Fortune: How Whale Money Bought Trees on Boston’s Emerald Necklace

Downtown Boston from Peter's Hill with Arboretum in foreground

Mountain Laurels in bloom c.1900

Strolling a main trail in 2023

There are close ties with neighbors in Jamaica Plain.

Cool, comfortable and creative ways abound to deepen visitor's knowledge of trees - look inside!

Side trails abound throughout the 281 acres of the Arboretum

Trees are observable in every part of their life cycle

Fall color on a group of maple trees

Visitors Center and administration at Hunnewell Hall, near the main entrance

City map from 1924, showing the Arborway buffering the city and the Arboretum

If I was a berry-eating robin, I’d be tempted to live at the Arnold Arboretum year-round. Snow storms be damned! Bird food is abundant in this 281 acre museum of trees located just 5 miles from the Boston Common. There are treats there for us humans, too, mostly in the...