Kurt Culbertson

TEXAS CHIARASCURO: The Life and Work of Arthur S. and Marie H. Berger

2011-01-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

TEXAS CHIARASCURO: The Life and Work of Arthur S. and Marie H. Berger
By Kurt Culbertson and Diane Del Cid

Arthur Schoene Berger [1903-1960] and Marie Harbeck Berger [1907-1963], were among the earliest practitioners of the modernist approach to landscape architecture pioneered by Thomas Church, Garrett Eckbo, and others.

Arthur S. Berger was born in Hartwell, Harvey County, Kansas, on December 19, 1903, the youngest of four children of Henry D. Berger and Magdelena Schoene.[1] He graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in biology in 1925.[2] Berger distinguished himself at an early age, producing at 24 the first autoluminar photograph.[3] He was a distinguished student commended by the University for being in the top 6% of all students.

By 1927 Arthur traveled to Europe and was living at 14 Wendell Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just off the Harvard University campus where he received his graduate degree in landscape architecture in 1928.[4] Berger was a finalist for the Rome Prize in 1929[5], won by Richard Coolidge Murdock.[6] Murdock’s drawings for the grounds of a colonial revival home carried the exposition at New York’s Grand Central Palace. A year later, Arthur was a finalists again, this time losing to Neil Hamil Park.[7]. After one year with the Long Island State Park Commission in 1930, he worked the next five years for Ferrucio Vitale. A native of Italy, Vitale was a classicist. Berger was then sent by the Vitale office to oversee the landscape construction of the Toledo Art Museum. This would have been the wings addition during the depression.

Berger traveled frequently from Ohio to lecture at the University of Kansas, and in 1933, was offered a teaching position in botany by President Malott. While declining the offer, he did assist the President with his plans for improvement of the campus. Mention the drive and reference Kessler’s plan.[8]

Encouraged to stay in the city by prominent Toledo residents, he formed the firm of Berger and Linnard with Lawrence G. Linnard [1901-1983].[9] [ Kurt to Connect Berger to Ellen Biddle Shipman at Stranleigh].[10] Linnard had also worked with Vitale in New York.[11] During their practice together from 1934 to 1937, they created the gardens of numerous large estates in the Toledo area including Elm House[12] in Perrysburg, Ohio, as well as, projects in Detroit and Cleveland. From 1937 to 1944, Arthur spent his summer in Toledo and his winters in Dallas, Texas. He established permanent residence in Dallas in 1939. The move was precipitated by the death of his brother Harry and a hard won commission to design the garden of Rancho Encinel, the residence of Texas Instrument founder, Everett Lee and Nell DeGolyer, Everett DeGolyer, an internationally renowned petroleum geologist and founder of Texas Instruments, on White Rock Lake.

[Kurt to describe briefly the state of Texas landscape architecture in 1939 – relating to his earlier presentation] Joe Lambert was the only major practicing landscape architect in Dallas. Richard Myrick arrived from Harvard in 1942.
With the outbreak of World War II, Arthur would contribute his skills to the Camouflage Branch of the United States Armey at Camp Belvoir, Virginia. There two events would change his life and his landscapes forever. The staff of Camouflage Branch was filled with naturalists, landscape architects and artists. The art of camouflage, a French work meaning “to conceal” had been pioneered by the French Army during World War I. At that time, artists were put into service in World War I to camouflage equipment and installations. Gertrude Stein famously reported the remarks of Picasso and Braque, viewing camouflaged military equipment on parade in Paris at the beginning World War I. “We did that,” Picasso said. “That is Cubism.” That may have been Cubism, which would have made the lovely lavender and pink lozenges of German Albatross fighter planes, fitted together like cells of a honeycomb, “hexagonalist.”[13] It was from these early pioneering efforts, as well as, study of trompe l’oile, that formed the basis of Arthur’s work in Virginia. It is also likely that he came in contact with many of the artist who contributed to the effort including Arshil Gorkey, Grant Wood, and Ellsworth Kelly. Study of the work of the early French cubists and collaboration with contemporary American artist would have no doubt challenged Arthur’s Beaux Arts training and shaped his conceptions of his own work.

Were that not enough to transformed a classically trained designer into a modernist another event in Fort Belvoir There he met a young landscape architect from Oregon, Marie Harbeck, who from 1942 to 1944, Marie contributed her design skills to the war effort. Marie Monica Harbeck was born in Seattle, Washington, on June 11, 1907.[14] A 1925 graduate of Grants Pass (Oregon) High School she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture in 1932 from Oregon State University, the last year in which a professional degree program in landscape architecture was taught there.[15] The landscape architecture program was then moved to the University of Oregon in Eugene to be part of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Professor Frederick A. Cuthbert, Marie’s long-time friend and mentor, who had chaired the program at Oregon State, also moved to Eugene in the transfer.[16]

Cuthbert assisted the young Harbeck in finding work initially with architect, Gardner T. Bailey from 1938-1940, and then in the office of Thomas Church in San Francisco. There she completed the design of the L.D. Owen Residence in Sausalito, as well as, numerous other projects. Cuthbert remained in contact with Marie during her days in San Francisco. Marie assisted with student visits to the Bay area and maintained a lifelong interest in the program at University of Oregon. She exhibited at the Architectural League of New York prior to World War II. Maria was also a designer of fabrics.

With the War’s end, Arthur convinced Marie to join him in Dallas in 1945, first as his business partner, and then as his wife. The two were married in Dallas on July 5, 1946, at the Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas. They became known simply as as “The Bergers”, initiating a successful career in landscape architecture, with most of their work done in San Antonio, Dallas (Highland Park, University Park and Preston Hollow) and Fort Worth, Texas.

DeGolyer introduced the Bergers to Texas architect O’Neal Ford. Their first collaboration was the home of Frank Murchison in San Antonio. Arthur and Marie’s plan for the Murchinson landscape provided intimate and fluid connections between interior and exterior spaces by means of patios, terraces and long galleries. The collaboration was so successful that ‘the trio’ (the Bergers and Ford) were repeatedly contracted to work together on significant projects in Dallas, Arlington, Salado and San Antonio, Texas, as well as various cities and ranches beyond. The T. Frank Murchison residence became a Texas Mid-century Modern icon and consolidated a symbiotic relationship between Ford and the Bergers. The garden and the house were intimately linked to the land; the house, in a longitudinal plan, on the contour of the hillside captured the southeast breezes across the main axis of the house. Upon visiting this house and garden, it was confirmed that all the rooms opened to the gardens located on both sides of the house: one side faced the hillside; the other faced the view. The landscape architects shaded the house while accentuating the view from every room through large windows to view the gardens dressed with Live Oaks, and shrub plantings of Gardenias and Camellias, Lantana and Plumbago. The terrace walls were built with stones quarried at the site.

Here was the influence of Thomas Dolliver Church. But in the hot Texas sun, the lessons learned from Arthur’s early experimentation with photography and their experience with the camouflage corp were also present. Arthur would speak of their approach to design in a March 1949 issue of House & Garden “Drama, in the garden as elsewhere, is achieved by contrast. The placing of light and shade next to each other creates sharp images, with both light and shade having a greater intensity by their proximity. A garden feature seen in brilliant sunlight from shaded surroundings may be seem as dramatically lighted as though it were picked out by a spotlight on a dark stage. Shadow patterns on the garden floor may complete the dark frame of the overhead object which causes them. The multiplicity of shadow forms is legion, being limited only by the number and variety of materials which impede the sun’s rays.” [Diane what year did they do the Murchinson garden? Ford did the house in 1937 which was well before the war.]

This garden, Arthur and Marie’s first collaboration with O’Neal Ford, is perhaps the first modernist landscape in Texas. House and Garden writer , Dr. Joseph E. Howland, ___ would label the Berger’s approach to design “Texas Chiarascuro”. Unlike Thomas Church and others who promoted large terraces as a means to outdoor living, Howland noted that the Bergers foresaw the universality of air-conditioned space and the movement indoors it would bring.

Arthur and Marie understood the regional environmental conditions of Texas and began using native plants and materials often times native from the project site. The Bergers, (as they became known) were described by their patrons, friends and relatives as talented, charming characters.

George Dahl (residence of Robert Storey, Dean of SMU law school) Houston architect, John Staub (The Urshel’s Magnolia Hill in San Antonio), Harwell Harris (Dean of the school of architecture at University of Texas - on the State fair House Beautiful Pace Setter home). [Diane – I think we want to reference these designers but in their logical chronological order]

Another early significant Berger-Ford project was the Haggerty House in the Prestonwood area of Dallas where the terrace joins the gardens at the edge of their signature sinuously curved retaining walls. This home, like many other Ford-Berger projects was situated on a creek. Several other successful Dallas projects followed, such as the Merritt, Penson, and McDermott (guesthouse) residences and all exist in excellent condition today with minor modifications to the landscape. In San Antonio, another Murchison family residence, Tom Slick and Charles Urschel Jr. residences.

[Diane we need to discuss Trinity and Temple Emanuel as separate projects] The Bergers collaborated with many renowned modern architects such as William Wurster (the former Dean of the School of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT and later Dean at the University of California at Berkeley). Marie had undoubtedly met Meyer during her time with Gordon Dailey and Thomas Church in San Francisco [Diane I’ll elaborate about Meyer’s background and early work.]

Howard Meyer, (architect for 3525 Turtle Creek, Temple Emanu-El and the McNaughton residence in Dallas), [Diane how did they meet Meyer? We need a little background on Meyer and his work as an early Dallas modernist]

The Berger’s own home on Stonebridge Road over Turtle Creek in Dallas, completed in 1953, became an icon of mid-century modern landscape and architecture upon it’s completion. Designed by O’Neil Ford, with William Wurster consulting and Scott Lyons as project architect, the house was often described nationally as a model of taste and fashion.

A bi-nuclear plan linked their living quarters to their studio office. The gardens, as many of their landscape designs, was perfectly suited to the Texas climate; they developed a methodology that started with gardens that were seared by sun on arid land, but they always managed to create a green oasis. They encouraged rapid growth of the selected plantings by enriching the soil and then pruning the trees to grow high first, and then spread wide into umbrella-like canopies. The Bergers life-long crusade was to transform the harsh Texas terrain into magnificent and sophisticated oases of light, water and shade, utilizing a technique known as the ‘chiaroscuro’. An August 1957 House Beautiful magazine article stated that, “Five years ago, this house [the Berger’s own home] was out in the hot Texas sun [and] now, a leafy canopy of trees and vines, [created] a ceiling over the entire area, [that] shelters both house and surroundings. Real climate control! All of the one and a half-acre property was either paved or planted with evergreen groundcovers, paving patterns, and broad, graceful steps defining the entrance.” During the construction and building of the Bergers house, Texas was experiencing the most severe drought in recorded history, yet they were able to create a masterpiece in landscape architecture.

Other residential gardens included the the Fort Worth garden of Mr. and Mrs. O.P. Leonard, and San Domingo Ranch, the home of Texas oilman, Dudley T. Dougherty in Beeville, Texas. The couple also restored the gardens of Holly Hedges in Natchez, Mississippi, as well.
They designed numerous college campuses, including Trinity University in San Antonio and the Science Quadrangle for St. Mark’s School. Commercial and industrial work included the Texas Instruments Headquarters in Dallas, and the company’s offices on Speedway in Houston, the Dallas Furniture Mart, and the grounds of the Dallas Morning News. Other projects included the roof garden of the Dallas Public Library, a resort in Jamaica, and another resort in Salado, Bell County, Texas.

Mr. and Mrs. Berger welcomed and entertained many of the great names in contemporary architecture, painting, music and writing at their home on Stonebridge Drive. In addition to their talent and contributions to landscape architecture, the Bergers were heavily involved in Dallas arts circles. Arthur sat on the board of the Museum of Fine Arts as well as the Margo Jones Theater. His numerous reviews of garden and architecture books were enjoyed by readers of the Dallas Morning News. He frequently was a guest speaker for many garden club lectures, slide presentations and organized garden tours and festivals that featured their beautiful gardens.

After having accomplished a successful career and recognition in Dallas, in Texas, and in the USA, Arthur and Marie traveled to Europe in 1956 and participated in the International Landscape Architecture Exposition in Zurich, Switzerland. Their work was first featured in contemporary magazines of the era, such as House Beautiful and House and Garden and then later, by architectural writers such as David Dillon and Mary Carolyn Hollers George. They described the Bergers’ design philosophy as being “avid students of Texas indigenous forms, [ and used] of native stone that often were quarried at the construction sites, [creating an] intimidate relationship [between] the terrain, the architectural design, the climate and soil conditions. Together, they created a Texas Modern landscape style where the architecture and the landscape worked in unison becoming and masters of the chiaroscuro.

Over time they added partners, Houston B. Bliss and Dick Heiderich, who joined in their design efforts. Tragically, Arthur’s brilliant career was cut short by an automobile accident. At age fifty-six, as a result of a car-truck crash at Beltline and Preston Road in Dallas, Arthur died on August 14th, 1960. The Bergers were planning to leave in a few days for a three month tour to visit European landscapes.

After Arthur’s death, Marie never recovered from the loss of her husband and partner. She returned to her home state of Oregon and while visiting her sister, her brain tumor became progressively worse. On the eve of her departure [to Dallas to settle her affairs], she suffered a stroke and died on April 5, 1963.

Arthur and Marie died childless, but were interested in the welfare of youth. In 1948, Arthur established an endowed scholarship-loan fund in memory of his only sister, Emily, at the University of Kansas. Arthur stipulated that this scholarship, the largest beneficiary of his will, be primarily for female students as he thought his sister had faced particular difficulties as a woman. Additional scholarships were also established at Ohio State, at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and in Marie’s birth-state at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University for landscape architecture and horticulture.

The Bergers achieved a very high level of design sophistication as modernists. Many of their projects still survive today as mature examples of their visionary work. Members of the Dallas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects presented a post-mortem tribute to Arthur by planting a Live Oak tree on St. John’s Drive, between Lexington and Alice Circle, as a gift to the City of Highland Park. The plaque at the bottom of the tree stated, “Planted in appreciation and acknowledgement of the landscape designs of Arthur and Marie Berger.”

Paul Horgan, Pulitzer Prize winner and writer of the Southwest, was quoted in an editorial in the Dallas Morning News shortly after Arthur’s death when he said that he ”.. spoke for many of Arthur Berger’s friends when he commented one day in a Berger Garden in Dallas “… a day in a Berger garden is a perfect work of art.””

Eugene and Margaret McDermott, who were good friends of the Berger’s as well as clients, donated the original, Van Gogh painting entitled “Banks of the River in Springtime” to the Dallas Museum of Art as a memorial in honor of Arthur Berger. Eugene McDermott stated in the Dallas Morning News on July 9th, 1961, “…may this be a fitting memorial to a man who sought out quality, who celebrated nature and left such beauty in the gardens he created”.

Marie was similarly lauded in her Dallas Morning News obituary by fellow landscape architect and associate, Houston Bliss, “her greatest flair was her ability to make lines sing in harmony and in relieving contrast. Her approach in design had an indefinable spontaneity and freshness, comfortable to comprehend and behold.”
Dallas, as well as the other cities where the Berger’s created gardens are fortunate to have had Arthur and Marie Berger as residents and landscape architects who had such a passion for nature and beauty and dedicated their personal and professional lives to helping make it what it is today.

Both Arthur and Marie were noted for their gentle personalities. They were adored by their clients with whom they closely collaborated in creating their gardens.

Over time they added partners, Houston B. Bliss and Dick Heiderich, who joined in their design efforts.
Bibliography:

1. Berger, Arthur S. “Factory Management and Maintenance,” April, 1940.
2. Berger, Arthur, “Plan the Shadows in Your Garden,” House and Garden 95, March 1949, 118-119.
3. “O.P. Leonard Estate, Fort Worth, Texas” ,Condé Nast, June 1950.
4. “Berger’s Dallas Hilltop”, Interiors, February 1956, 78-83.
5. Howland, Dr. Joseph, Landcape Architecture, “Marie and Arthur Berger, A Tribute,” 1964. 266-270.
6. “The Berger Garden,” ASLA Southwest News, March 1965.
7. “ASLA Fellow Biographical Sketch,” Files of the American Society of Landscape Architecture, August 18, 1977.
8. Dillon, David, The Architecture of O’Neal Ford, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999, 35, 60,79,81,101.
9. Laurence, Dianne Susan Duffner, “A Symbiotic Relationship Between Mid-Century Modern Masters: The Collaborative Works of Arthur and Marie Berger, Landscape Architects and O’Neil Ford, Architect,” Master of Arts Thesis, University of Texas at Arlington, 2007.
10. “The Maynard Parker Collection,” Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

Major Projects:

1. Rancho Encinal, the DeGolyer Estate (now part of the Dallas Botanical Garden), 8525 Garland Road, Dallas, Texas 75128, [1937] www.dallasarboretum.org
2. Elm House, the former home of Mr. and Mrs. Clare J. Hoffman, Perrysburg, Ohio [1938]
3. Stranleigh, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stranahan, Jr. 5100 West Central Avenue, Toledo, Ohio [1938 – Mills, Rhines, Belman, an Nordhoff, Architects] Now part of Wildwood Preserve, Toledo.
4. Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, Texas 78212-7200 1(210)999-7011 [ab. 1948 -master plan by William Wurster and O’Neil Ford, Architects ]
5. The Restoration of Holly Hedges, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Hart Miller Residence, Natchez, Mississippi, [1949]
6. San Domingo Ranch, the Dudley T. Dougherty Residence, Highway 181N, Bee County, Beeville, Texas 78102, 1(361) 358-1244 [1950]
7. Temple Emanu-El, 8500 Hillcrest Road, Dallas, Texas, 75225 [1953-1959] [Howard Meyer, Max Sanfield, and William Wurster Architects]
8. Texas Instruments Corporate Campus, Dallas, Texas, [1955], [O’Neil Ford, Architect]
9. St. Marks School of Texas, Science and Mathematics Quadrangle, 10600 Preston Road, Dallas, Texas 75230-4000 [Marie Berger, 1961 – O’Neil Ford, Architect]
10. 3525 Turtle Creek High-Rise Condominums, 3525 Turtle Creek, Dallas, Texas 75219 [1957-58] [Howard Meyer, Architect]

[1]
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[6] “Art: Prix de Rome,” Time, August 4, 1930
[7] “Little Savages, “Time, May 18, 1932
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[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
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2011-01-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

LANDSKAP AND TRÄDGÅRD: THE CONTRIBUTION OF SCANDINAVIAN-AMERICANS TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE IN AMERICA

Abstract
The history of American landscape architecture has centered on the life and work of Frederick Law Olmsted and his followers of English descent. Recent research has revealing a rich blending of traditions from a wide variety of countries including Germany, Holland, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

The Scandinavians also made significant contributions. This paper provides a basic understanding of garden design in the countries of Scandinavia and offers an overview of Scandinavian settlement patterns within North America. It chronicles the earliest known example of Scandinavian horticulture and design such as Printz Hall in Delaware and the explorations of Pehr Kalm [1716-1779].

The life and work of East Coart practitioners will also be reviewed, including Norwegian Niles Bierragaard Schubarth [1818-1869] of Rhode Island and Hans Heistad of Maine [1871-1945]. The contributions of Swede Anders Nils Pierson [1850-1925] of Cromwell, Connecticut, and John Emil Lager in Summit, New Jersey, are also considered. The life and work of Otto Holmdahl of Seattle, and Svea Lindquist and Helga Olson of Santa Cruz, California, will also be considered.

The greatest influence on American landscape architecture, however, came in Chicago where Swain Nelson [1828-1917] and his cousin, Olaf Benson designed the city’s west parks. Jens Jensen, a young Danish immigrant, [1860-1951] became one of the most significant landscape architects of the 20th century. Svend Lillesgaard [ - ] designed and managed Woodlawn Cemetery in the city. Per Samuel Pederson [1830-1903] created Rose Hill Nursery and provided virtually every tree on the streets of Chicago.

Through a review of the professional works of these individuals the Scandinavian design perspective will be compared and contrasted to that of other immigrant groups and its relevance to the development of the profession placed within context.

Text

The history of the development of landscape architecture in the United States has often centered around the life and work of Frederick Law Olmsted and his followers, many of English descent. Recent research, however, has documented the contributions other ethnic groups, notably the Germans and Dutch, revealing a history of landscape architecture in this country that is not simply grounded in the “English landscape school” but rather a rich blending of traditions from a wide variety of countries including France, Italy, Spain, and Japan.

Among the ethnic groups who made significant contributions to the development of designed landscapes in America were the Scandinavians. Scandinavian place names can be found throughout the United States.

An understanding of the Scandinavian influence in this country must first begin with a basic understanding of garden design in the countries of Scandinavia, a name used to denote the four nations of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. These vast landscapes have historically been sparsely inhabited by people who are lovers of nature and ruled by governments with a strong tradition of social engagement. It is not unreasonable, therefore, that Scandinavian immigrants to this country would bring with them this love of nature and an understanding of the place of parks and open space to influence social change.

An understanding of the Scandinavian influence on the development of landscape architecture in the United States must begin with knowledge of the natural and design landscapes of the countries of Scandinavia. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, Denmark stretched as far as Norway and the south of Sweden. Sweden included a part of modern-day Finland, while Carelia, Finland’s most easterly region, shared a border with Russia. Therefore, it is not surprising that, at the same latitude, the gardens of Norway and Denmark have more characteristics in common, than do Norway and Finland.[1]

Southern Denmark maintained close ties with the European continent. As a result, the early garden traditions of Scandinavia had their inspiration in the gardens of Italy, Holland, England, and Germany. Koldinghaus, one of Denmark’s most important royal castles, was built by King Christian III and Queen Dorothea in 1562 according to the principles of the Italian Renaissance garden.[2] From these beginning the art of landscape gardening began to spread throughout the kingdom. Hans Raszmusson Block published in 1647 De horticultura danica, indicating that the garden was a long established part of Danish culture. Gardens as designed landscapes are most recent in Finland, being rediscovered in Norway, or both as in Sweden.

Although it is common to dismiss the countries of Scandinavia as a land of endless summer nights and brief winter days, they contain dramatically varied landscapes within their borders. Sweden presents many of the characteristics of the landscape elements that are common to Scandinavia as a whole. In the southern part of the country, the landscape are gently undulating and almost flat. In Denmark, agriculture has created a pattern of carefully cultivated plots of land. “The noble families who still inhabit the many fortified houses scattered principally across the region of Skäne are the custodians of the garden in its most refined state. These gardens, which date for the most part from the 1600s and 1700s, were laid out on formal lines within the area enclosed by the moat that surrounded the house, while the park or outer area drew its inspiration from the model of the English landscape garden.”[3]

Moving north and west through Scandinavia, the countryside becomes harsher, culminating in the spectacular grandeur of Norway where mountains plunging sheer into the sea alternate with dense coniferous woods. The Gulf Stream washes the western coastline and relieves the harsh climatic conditions.

In Norway recent studies show that, form medieval times, here as in other parts of Europe Cistercian monks had pioneered the tradition of the monastic garden, rich in fruit-bearing trees and aromatic herbs. Large gardens of more classic form were few in number and were subsequently destroyed. One exception is largly intact, Rosendal Barony, which still retains the design created by the Dutch gardeners engaged in 1660 by the first Lutheran bishop of Bergen.

Moving north and eastwards, a succession of woods, lakes and clearings, heralds the arrival of the Finnish countryside where water is such a dominant feature that many village bear names associated with its presence, such as Joki (river), Jarvi (lake), and Saari (island). Here the year is marked not so much by the passage of the months as by the change from winter to summer. The cold season has very few hours of light, and the complete covering of snow and ice alters our sensory perceptions; both earth and sky are of a whiteness that seems to stretch to infinity. It may seem absurd to say so, but the impression of limitless space and the immense silence is the same as that which we might experience in the desert or the African savannah. The summer season, while brief, is both warm and colorful. The sun remains on the horizon for many hours and within the Arctic circle it never sets. The length of the sun’s rays can make the water of the lakes seem almost white – sometimes with delicate shades of pink – and creates a special atmosphere which has been a source of inspiration for many artists. The light is tranquil and a little melancholy, so different from the exuberance of the Mediterranean world. Between these two seasons comes the magical moment of reawakening in late spring; the snow and ice melt and the countryside is once more delineated by water and somehow seems to shrink as the land takes repossession of its boundaries.

In this the most easterly of the Scandinavian countries, cut off yet further from the rest of the Continent by a language with no Indo-European roots, gardens in the usual sense of the term are an exception. Within the cloisters of the Greek Orthodox churches, the tradition of the walled garden (Hortus conclusus), arrived from Russia. There was no landed nobility desiring to vaunt its power by building gardens. In a country so marked by the presence of untamed nature, and by a farming tradition that embodies the struggle for survival, gardens were considered to be a useless luxury. In gardening terms, it may be more meaningful to speak of nature “managed” as a transitional step between the house and its surrounding countryside; or perhaps of the “temporary garden” – a reference to those brief moments of summer when bulbs and biennials explode into flower, only to close down again within the space of a few months. Even staples such as ivy and box cannot survive the climatic conditions here. Yew and privet take their place in the more protected areas, and farther north beech, fir and ash (Sorbus sp.) predominate before the tundra takes over. In the forest, where the sun’s rays barely penetrate, different types of birch alternate with the conifer and ash, while the undergrowth is rich in bilberries and raspberries growing amidst the moss which clings to smooth granite rocks. It is this landscape that shaped the immigrants, and the landscape designers among them, who came to America.
What is the history of landscape architectural education in Scandinavia?
Where did Scandinavians settle – Scandinavian place names.

While the Dutch, British, Spanish, and French, carved out settlements in the New World, so did the Swedes. Grounded in these cultural landscape traditions, Scandinavians became to immigrate in to the America colonies in the mid-17th century. The Delaware colony of 1638 established Fort Christina in honor of the Swedish child queen. Under the leadership of first governor, Peter Minuit, the settlers brought all kinds of grain for seed and tobacco planters. Canary and cremmin seed were tried and successful but were not sought after. Why these crops were tried is unknown but the constitute one of the earliest records of garden activitie on the shores of the Delaware. Van der donck wrote of the early years of the settlements: “But some time after, some of our people going thither found him still there (1638) and he had planted a garden, and the plants were growing in it.”[4]

Now firmly established in the hands of the Swedes, various expeditions were sent out from Sweden. By the time the fourth expedition arrived the Swedes were firmly established. Governor Printz now led the community and in 1643 he wrote to Chancellor Oxenstiern in Sweden: “It is a remarkably fine land, with all excellent qualities a man can desire on earth.” His enthusiasm did not wane, for in 1650 he wrote again: “[they] cultivate the land earnestly, not only with rye and with barley, but they also plant orchards, with splendid fruit trees and they get on mighty well.”[5]

Printz believed that Fort Christina had become sufficiently well established as a center of business and the trade with native Americans to begin the establishment of new settlements. The most important of these was away from the mainland on the broad river on the Island of Tinicum, the present Lazaretto station. There he built himself a “palace,” and from the brief accounts of this building is found the first recond of a garden in Delaware built for pleasure. Thomas Campanius Holm, grandson of John Campanius, one of the first ministers in the Swedish colony wrote:

“Governor Printz resides in the fort and gave it the name fo New Gottenburg. He also caused to be built there a mansion for himself and his family which was very handsome: there was likewise a fine orchard and a pleasure house and other conveniences. He called it Printz Hall. On this island the principal inhabitants had their dwellings and plantations.”[6]

According to the Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of Delaware, Printz Hall was so substantially built that it lasted 175 years, and would with care have stood twice as many more, if it had not been accidentally burned to the ground in 1811.

Though New Sweden passed under Dutch control in 1655, the horticultural development of Delaware, the Swedes and their descendants were busily engaged in cultivating the soil and planting extensive orchards. Israel Acrelius, the Swedish historian, writes: “Vegetable gardens are kept for almost every house. There are generally cultivated beets, parsnips, onions, parsley, radish, Turkish beans, large beans, peppergrass, red pepper, lettuce, head lettuce, German lettuce and scurvy grass. Anything else is regarded as a rarity. Common herbs for domestic remedies are wormwood, rue, sage, thyme, chamomile, etc. . . .” It is likely that Swedish housewives cultivated a few flowers between the rows, particularly pot marigold.[7]

While William Penn disparaged the orchards of the Swedes in one of his letters, Acrelius says: “Orchards may be regarded as among the highest advantages of the country. But the fruit consists mostly all of three sorts, cherries, peaches, and apples. Pears are rare. Cherry trees are generally planted here and there around the houses and roads, away from the gardens . . .

“Peach-trees stand within an inclosure by themselves; growing even in the stoniest places without culture: the fruit is the most delicious the mouth can taste.” And here we come on the belief so widely spread in those days: “This fruit is regarded as indigenous, like maize and tobacco. . .

“Apple trees make the finest orchards, planted in straight rows with intervals of twelve or fifteen paces. The best kind is called Van der Veer, as a Hollander of that name introduced it. Another sort is the house apple, which is good for winter fruit.”

Acrelius gives us also the first record in Delaware of the planting of a tree for purely ornamental use. He says: “The buttonwood grows wild, but is planted before the doors of houses. . .Its greatest use is for shading houses from the great heat of the sun.”[8] He states also that pine trees were planted near houses for ornaments.

Printz influence was also felt in the settlements of New Jersey. Encouraging he cultivation of tobacco he turned his attention to care and propogation of wild grapes and the making of wine. He also kept silkworms with the intent of establishing manufacturing operations in the region. Strawberries, huckleberries, and cranberries hybridized by these early colonists was one of New Jersey’s contribution to modern horticulture.

Swedish interest in American plants and horticulture received a tremendous boost in 1748, when Pehr Kalm [1716-1779] was sent by the Royal Academy of Sweden to explore America botanically. Kalm was born in Angermanland, Sweden, and attended college in Finland before moving to Uppsala University in Sweden in 1740. Here Kalm studied under the great scientist Carl Linnaeus [1707-1778] who became his friend and mentor. Linneaus was responsible for developing the system of classification of plants using Latin binomials.

During the 18th century students and colleagues of Linneaus kept a steady stream of specimens flowing back to the Uppsala. As one of Linneaus’ best students, Kalm was selected in 1747 to travel to North America to collect seeds of plants that might prove useful for agriculture and industry.

Kalm arrived in Pennsylvania in 1748 and made his base of operations the Swedish ex-patriate communities in southern New Jersey, where he served a pastor of a local church and married in 1750. He made trips as far north as Quebec and as far west a Niagara Falls. Kalm’s journal of his travels was published in Stockholm as En Resa til Norra America in three volumes between 1753 and 1761. Kalm was especially interested in the laurels of America, and a few years after his return to Sweden Linneaus gave him an enduring memorial by naming that genus Kalmia. Kalm himself named the checkerberry or wintergreen, so common in acid Eastern woodlands, Gaultheria procumbens, for Dr. Jean Francois Gauthier, royal physician of Quebec, an enthusiastic botanist who enjoyed taking the young naturalist on trips through his province.

Arriving in much smaller numbers than other ethnic groups such as the English, Africans, Scotch-Irish, Germans, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Dutch, and French, by 1775, Swedish and Finnish immigrants totaled 0.2% of the American population.[9] With the arrival of the new nation and the dawn of a new century, economic stability in America led to the development of designed parks, gardens, and cemeteries in the country.

The 19th century began an influx of landscape gardeners, foresters, and horticulturalists who would have an impact on the designed landscapes of America. Scandinavians like native born Americans were often educated in another field like art, forestry, botany or horticulture and in turn adapted their education and acquire knowledge through practice, unlike to some degree the German Americans who had professional training at such schools at the Gartenlehranstalt which was founded in 1823. The first European landscape architecture program was established in Norway in 1919. The first Swedish training program in landscape architecture, for example, was started in 1933 in Alnarp with Sven A. Hermelin [1900-1984] as professor.[10]

In Rhode Island Niles Bierragaard Schubarth [1818-1889] left a substantial legacy of design. Born in Drǿbak, Norway (a small town south of Oslo), on 24 May 1818, Niles Bierragaard Schubarth[11], named for his Danish maternal grandfather, was the paternal grandson of a German immigrant who had settled in nearby Kongsberg. His father died when he was ten, and through the patronage of a prosperous villager and his wife, Schubarth found work at fourteen in a local store and counting house.

The Romantic writings of James Fenimore Cooper aroused in Schubarth a strong desire to experience the United States first hand, and he immigrated at the age of twenty-two to western New York, the setting for much of that author’s early writing. His Norwegian patron then characterized him as possessing “…a high mind and a good heart.” He found work in 1840 with a Rochester civil engineering firm engaged in the first expansion of the Erie Canal. Although untutored, Schubarth demonstrated a special aptitude for drawing and was placed in charge of delineating surveys and plans for the canal. When financial difficulties shut down canal construction in 1842, Schubarth, described as “…an ingenious and accomplished draftsman, and as a useful member in any office or company of engineers,” moved to Providence, Rhode Island, then in need of civil engineers. He remained in Providence for the rest of his life.

Schubarth’s first professional activity in Providence was in collaboration with Stephen Atwater [1816-1855][12] in the office of the bustling, rapidly-growing, and culturally-ambitious city’s only established engineering firm. Active by the 1820s under Benoni Lockwood [1777-1852] and continued by his son, Moses B. Lockwood [1815-1872], the firm had devolved by 1844 to Samuel B. Cushing [1811-1873]. The relationship between Cushing,Atwater and Schubarth remains unknown; they occupied the same quarters in 1844, but by 1845 the new firm had moved to separate quarters.

The new firm burst onto Providence’s landscape scene. Within two years after its appearance, Atwater & Schubarth had garnered all three of the 1840s open-space landscape-design commissions in Providence: two public commissions in 1845, the Cove Basin and the new section of North Burial Ground, and, the following year, the original section of the privately subscribed Swan Point Cemetery. In addition to these landscaped open spaces, the firm became heavily involved in surveying and platting undeveloped land into house lots for the rapidly expanding Providence metropolitan area. William E. Haines joined the firm between mid-1848 and early 1849; the collaboration was known briefly as Atwater, Schubarth & Haines before Atwater’s departure by April of 1849. By 1854, Schubarth and Haines too had gone their separate ways, both practicing independently in Providence.

Schubarth’s professional activity included designing Romantic publicly accessible open space, pragmatic division of undeveloped land into house-lots, designing buildings, and real-estate speculation. The North Burial Ground and Swan Point commissions led to similar undulating, curvilinear cemeteries at River Bend in Westerly, Rhode Island, and Oak Grove in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, both in 1852; Elm Grove in Mystic, Connecticut, in 1853; and Juniper Hill in Bristol, Rhode Island in 1859. He may also have designed Mount Hope Cemetery (1850) in North Attleborough, Massachusetts. His advertisement in the 1860 Providence Directory, proclaiming “N.B. Schubarth’s New Method OF LAYING OUT RURAL CEMETERIES, combining the Geometrical with THE NATURAL STYLE,” seems oddly hollow today, for no new cemetery commissions followed. Indeed, beginning in 1859, when Butler Hospital for the Insane, abutting Swan Point to the south, obtained the services of Horace W. S. Cleveland to design a therapeutic setting for its patients’ recovery, Schubarth was passed over for major public-works landscaping in the metropolitan area. He was, however, a founding member in 1883 of Providence’s important, if not always influential, Public Park Association, an early exponent of sensible and attractive land-use planning. His stock in trade was surveying and platting house lots, which began in the mid-1840s, continued into the mid-1880s in Providence and the adjacent cities of Cranston and Warwick. Schubarth’s architectural commissions include the Arnold Block [1854] in Providence, the Oriental Mill in Providence [1860] and the Willamantic Linen Thread Mill in Connecticut [1864], the Jefferson Street Baptist Church [1867], and several houses, including two for himself [1873 and 1874]. He began to speculate in real estate in 1851 and by the mid-1850s was playing the multiple roles of surveyor, designer, and investor in several of the areas he platted.

Schubarth’s career and position in American landscape design perhaps begs more questions than it answers. Cooper’s lure to the vanishing frontier of the United States suggests a strong Romantic impulse, visible in his early cemetery designs. His decision to move to Providence to fill a need for civil engineers shows his practical side, even more fully revealed in his house-lot platting, where maximum return on investment (for others as well as for himself) drove the design. His venture into architecture, self-ratified in his own advertising by 1867, in some ways combines a romantic willingness for new challenges with practical need. His apparent lack of professional training did not hinder his brief, intense, early involvement in public, æsthetic-driven designs but ultimately must have inhibited his involvement with larger-scale projects in the late nineteenth century. Constantly buying and selling real estate as well as moving his own office and household, he ultimately seems to have achieved the restlessness more characteristic of his adopted country than his native land.

Schubarth died at his home (the ninth he occupied during his forty-six years in Providence) on 31 July 1889. His remains were laid to rest on a knoll just inside the original entrance to Swan Point Cemetery, which he had designed more than forty years earlier.

Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes (in that order by total immigrants) arrived in great numbers following the Civil War. A shortage of farm land and exploding populations forced many from their homelands. Norway was second to only Ireland in loss of its 19th century population to America as economic depressions there and in Sweden in the 1880s accelerated the flow of new residents to the United States. Scandinavians, many of them lumbermen, farmers, and miners settled primarily in the upper Midwest. Many later went to the Pacific coast in search of jobs and land. “This is just like Norway!” wrote on Norwegian of Washington’s Puget Sound.[13] In 1890, Scandinavians comprised significant percentage of the populations, in excess of fifteen percent, of many counties in North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the Seattle region, with significant populations in portions of Utah, Montana, Iowa, and Nebraska. Smaller populations existed throughout the inter-mountain West, and along the East Coast.

Born October 25, 1861, in Upsala, Sweden, John Emil Lager [1861-1937] was educated in public schools of his home town before the Countess of Posa, noting his early interest in botany, sent him to the University is Upsala to study botany and ornamental horticulture. The Countess had extensive gardens and conducted horticultural experiments on her property, did much to advance Lager’s career. Following his studies, Lager traveled to England where we worked for the nursery of Mr. Ware on the outskirts of London. By some reports, he also worked for a time in Kew Gardens. He then spent four years in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. In 1886 he emigrated to America where he found work with a florist who had a retail store in New York City and greenhouses in Connecticut. Shortly afterwards, he entered the employment of Pitcher and Manda, Short Hills, New Jersey, where he worked for a few years. When the firm decided to develop orchid culture on a large scale he was sent to Colombia, S.A., to collect for them.
Lager's obsession with orchids eventually blossomed into his own commercial venture when, in 1896, he founded an orchid business with a Mr. Hurrell in Summit, New Jersey. It was an ideal partnership: Lager collected orchids in South America while Hurrell stayed in Summit to run the business and raise the orchids. In New Jersey, John E. Lager’s greenhouse operation, Lager and Hurrell, specialized in the growing of orchids, many collected during hunting expedition in South America.[14] Lager served as a trustee of the American Orchid Society. After Lager's death in 1937, his son, John Lager, Jr., managed the firm.
Anders Nils Pierson of Haslöv, Skåne, Sweden, came to Connecticut in 1870 and established a substantial nursery and greenhouse operation covering over one million square feet of space. He eventually earned the title of “Rose King of America” for the number of varieties he developed.[15]

Another Scandinavian-American landscape architect active on the East Coast during the 19th century was Hans Olaus Halvorsen Thomassen Heistad [1871-1945]. Heistad was born in Brevik, Telemark, Norway, on March 11, 1871 and educated in Norway and Denmark. He immigrated to the United States in 1905 and became a citizen in 1909.[16] He was introduced to Maine in 1910 through the Olmsted Brothers. Working at the Bar Harbor Estate of Joseph Pulitzer, Heistad built a series of relationships that lead to designs for numerous summer residences in Camden and Rockport.[17]

One of Heistad’s most significant landscapes was the Weatherend Estate in Rockport, for the Gribbel family of Philadelphia.[18] Begun in 1903, Heistad designed the naturalistic landscape for the 9,000 acre home in 1913, skillfully responding to both the architecture and the rugged coastal setting. Originally part of a nineteen acre estate, the property today comprises about four and a half acres. The home sits on a narrow peninsula in Penobscot Bay from which there are long views of the ocean to the southeast, Islesboro Island to the northeast, and North Haven and Vinalhaven islands to the east.

Heistad transformed the barren, rocky site by building a substantial masonry seawall which he then backfilled with tons of topsoil. A series of terraced gardens enclosed by stone walls, buffer the plantings from constant winds. Exposed stone ledge figured prominently in the design, as did rough-cut lawns. Stone “teeth” edge a perimeter walk along the shore. The concrete walk with wooden bridges follows the natural topography of the site and moves in and out of sight behind rock outcrops. A rustic pavilion with sod roof emerges from the ledge.

A talented carpenter, Heistad also designed the signature furniture of Weatherend. The crisp white of his furniture created focal points in the landscape and provided an element of formality. Heistad’s furniture was curved to reflect the curving stone walls of the site. An arbor’s arch recalls that on a window of the home.

Although the overall design of the property is naturalistic, historic photos indicate that the property also had formal flower plantings. The narrow base at the edge of the stone walls were planted with a single horizontal plant, though historic photos indicate that flowers border the rock ledges.

In addition to Weatherend, the Gribbel family also owned Beech Hill which rises 500 feet above Weatherend. In 1915, Heistad built a sod-roofed stone hut, Beech Nut, for the Gribbel’s afternoon teas and picnics. Beech Nut was inspired by the design of bytter, traditional Norwegian mountain cottages. While in the traditional bytter designs had wooden walls with stone foundation and fireplaces, Heistad’s structure on Beech Hill is built entirely of stone. Archways frame views to the ocean, surrounding fields, and Chickawaukee Pond.

The trip from Weatherend to the top of Beech Hills was about five miles. By horse and carriage the journey took about an hour and a half. To mark the entrance to Beech Hill, Heistad built a timber gateway with stone piers and wing walls with arches similar to those at the hut. It is not known if Heistad designed the approach road to Beech Nut. The stunning drive which meanders through meadows and blueberry fields offer unfolding views of Penobscot Bay, Chickawaukee Pond, and bay islands.

Heistad was not the only Scandinavian working in Maine during the first decades of the 20th century. From 1922 to 1926, Jens Jensen designed and constructed a spectacular garden for Edsel Ford in Seal Harbor, called Skylands. Ford’s site comprised seventy-four acres on a wooded hillside 334 feet above sea level. “It is far from the prairies of the west to the rocky coast of Maine, to a different landscape with its different beauty – a new world for the prairie mind to understand and to learn to love.”[19]

When Jensen began work, constructed had already begun on Ford’s home. Duncan Candler, a New York City, architect, designed the home in the Beaux Arts style and called for clear, orderly outdoor spaces arranged around a main sight line. Candler constructed two large granite terraces. The Italian gardens Candler proposed for the terraces were never built. Jensen treated the formal terraces with simple panels or grass and informal groupings of trees.

Jensen created an informal terrace on the slope with a massive twenty-five foot granite retaining wall. Below the terrace was a naturalistic garden with curving path, a “mountain meadow,” of heather of shrubby St. Johns-wort, and one of Jensens’ signature council rings surrounding by yews, a granite waterfall and pool, and extensive rockwork including boulders arrange to mimic a stream. Jensen proposed pine needle paths.

Jensens’ mountain meadow at Skyland was one of the most heavily planted of his gardens. Here he utilized almost exclusively trees, shrubs, and groundcovers native to the United States. Maine natives including lambkill, partridgeberry, ferns, blueberry, winterberry, dogwood, alder, sumac, viburnum, and shad predominate. Native hemlock screen the garden from the service area and laundry yard and as a backdrop to the massive stone wall. Mountain ash, red maples, sugar maples, and a rock elm provide fall color.

Candler’s plan had called for a cicular turnaround in the driveway carved into the granite bedrock. Candler did not propose an aesthetic treatment of the resulting rock ledge. Jensen enlisted mountain ash, pitch pine, with-rod viburnum, and shad to soften the granite face. Jensen’s plant selection throughout the garden did not entirely include native plant material. In some locations Siberian iris, harebells, and delphiniums were utilized, as well as, Savin juniper and Smilax. Despite these exceptions, Jensens’ work in Skyland, as well as, his other projects reflect an understanding of and emphasis upon native communities.

The Danish botanist Eugenius Warming published the English translation of his book Plantesamfund, entitled The Oecology of Plants, in 1909.[20] Warming, whose writings described the importance of plant communities, was perhaps the most preeminent founder of the science of ecology. His writings undoubtedly influenced the thinking of Jensen, and other landscape architects who sought to evolve a naturalistic approach to landscape design in the United States.

Whether Jens Jensen and Hans Heistad met each other during this time is unknown. Although Jensen was eleven years, Heistad’s senior both had been educated in Denmark. Jensen’s had by this time achieved national stature, and Heistad is likely to have least known him by reputation. As Bar Harbor is only seventy-eight miles from Heistad’s home in Rockport it is difficult to imagine that the younger landscape architect was not aware of Jensen’s work.

In addition to Weatherend and Beech Nut, Hans Heistad also constructed the garden of his own three-quarter-acre homesite on Amsbury Hill in Rockport.[21] He added estate-like features to the property including specimen trees, rock gardens, shrub borders, a lily pond, a perimeter walk, and a driveway which encircled the house. A skilled laborer, Heistad also helped install Fletcher Steele’s design for the Camden Library Amphitheater, and the Rockport Harbor Improvement project, both in 1931.

From 1935 to 1942, Heistad served as staff landscape architect for the Camden Hills State Park.[22] Heistad’s focus on naturalistic design made him the perfect choice to design the parks’ Lower Sagamore area, fifty acres on the ocean side of Route One. Hans oversaw the Civilian Conservation Corp crews cleared brush, graded the site and constructed roads and parking areas. In addition to building two miles of hiking trails and rustic footbridges, they also planted 7,000 native trees and shrubs. Heistad also supervised the construction of a variety of stone features including the entrance gate, toll house, fireplaces with seats and tables, picnic shelters, dams, steps along the hillside trails, and massive stone benches in the woods. His proposed stone amphitheater for 700 to 800 visitors was never built.

In the northern part of Sagamore, Heistad also improved a stream. At the upper end a native flower garden and small rock terraces surrounding a large birch tree were constructed. Farther downstream was shaped a large pool with a stone dam, followed by a series of waterfalls, smaller pools, and rustic footbridges.

Heistad’s naturalistic design of the state park was but one example of how Scandinavian design influences found their way into the rustic style of America park design. Heistad died in Walterville, Kennebec, Maine, on February 22, 1945.

Chicago’s first Swedish community emerged in 1846, when immigrants destined for the Swedish religious colony in Bishop Hill, Illinois, decided to settle instead in Chicago. From this beginning the settlement grew to be the largest in the United States. In 1848, only 40 Swedes lived in Chicago. The population grew slowly reaching 816 people in 1860 and 6,154 in 1870. Many of these immigrants were young, Protestant, and literate from the rural south of Sweden. During the 1870’s the Swedish population in the city doubled, outnumbered only by the German, Irish, and British immigrant groups. These early Swedish settlers established three distinct ethnic enclaves. The largest emerged north of the Chicago River on the Near North Side and became known as Swede Town; a second, on the South Side in Douglas and Armour Square was smaller; and the third grew in Lawndale on the West Side. Smaller settlements emerged in West Town and the New West Side.

This Swedish community of Chicago saw the emergence of two men as prominent practitioners in the new field of landscape architecture. One of these was Swain Nelson [1828- ]. Nelson was born om Fjelkestad, Sweden, on January 30th, on the estate of Christinelund (sp) about fifteen miles from Åraslöf. His father was superintendent of the estate. Nelson had been injured as a young man as the demanding work of agriculture was a challenge for him. At the suggestion of a family friend, Mr. Hoppman, he entered the field of horticulture as an apprentice on the large estate of Vanås. He apparently did not like the head gardener and did not feel that he taught him a great deal. At that time he considered going to Germany to study his new field, making arrangements for instruction in the German language.

In the Spring of 1852, Nelson, now 23, immigrated to America with members of his Parish church. The travelers sailed first to Göteborg and then to New York. The passenger then traveled by packet canal boat to Defiance, Ohio. Also making the journey was Nelson’s cousin, Olaf Benson.

Two years after arriving in Defiance, his childhood sweetheart, Sophie Hoppman, came to America to become his wife. After brief jobs in farming and in a cigar store, Nelson found employment in the Spring of 1854 improving the grounds around the house of a banker in Defiance. His career as a landscape gardener had begun. How Nelson made the transformation from a Swedish farm worker to a landscape gardeners is unknown. Perhaps his brief time as an apprentice at Vanås was more influential than Nelson admitted. More likely he simply had a gift for design and like many other practitioners during the period was self taught.

That summer Nelson and his young wife moved to Chicago. Upon his arrival he walked into the drug store of Mr. F. A. Bryan. In a conversation with the owner, Nelson mentioned that he was a gardener looking for work. Bryan was building a new home in the city and invited Nelson to visit the site. Visiting the property the next day, Nelson offered to double dig the entire ground. Bryan agreed and quickly became fascinated with the work. After the initial cultivation, Nelson laid out walks, planted ornamental trees and shrubs, and seeded his ground. This was his first project in Chicago. At Bryan’s urging, Swain Nelson printed business cards announcing his efforts as a “Landscape Gardener.” Numerous small jobs followed, so much so that when Nelson’s childhood sweetheart, Sophie Hoppman, arrived in New York on the way to Chicago, he could not afford the time away from work to bring her to Chicago. Instead Nelson sent his cousin, Olaf Benson, to gather Sophie and two girl friends.

The couple was married on July 17, 1857, shortly after the young girl’s arrival in the Windy City. The younger Benson boarded with the young couple while he attended high school. After high school, Benson volunteered for the army during the civil war. Upon his return to Chicago he too was married and shortly after became Nelson’s business partner.

One day Nelson was walking and looking for work he found a pile of bricks in one enclosure of twenty acres. The owner of the property was southern gentleman named James Waller. Nelson solicited Waller to prepare a plan for his home grounds.

“I asked for a sheet of paper. I sat down to a table and drew rough pencil sketched the way I would lay out the grounds. The place where the pile of bricks lay was a little elevation about 50 ft. from the road back of this elevation was a ravine a depression about 4 feet and beyond this ravine was the ground rising 3 or 4 feet higher. I placed the house on the drawing about 200 feet further on the {blank space] from the brick pile on the highest part of the ground. I drew a graceful drive from the road over the ravine to the location of the house and beyond the house to the barn and green houses. He took the plan and looked at it then he remarked to some gentle man in the office, here is a man with only ordinary education he is conveying to my mind with his pencil sketch a plan that he could not have explained to me by any amount of talking, he proposes to change the location of my house 200 ft. further from the road on a higher ground and he is right. Mr. Waller told me to mark out the drive on the ground also mark the location for the house and barn, he approved of the plan and gave me his work making drives and planting trees, it was a good work, and I made good profit from it. I also made good friends with a family.”[23] In an example of chain migration, Nelson secured a position for another Swedish immigrant as gardener of Mr. Waller’s estate.

Another friend of James Waller, Mr. Thomas B. Bryan, was planning to create a cemetery on the land adjacent to Waller. Nelson became by laying out a place for an entry and office on the property and staking the centerline for a main road into the property which was covered with small oaks. “I started to work out the whole ground in fifty feet squares and marked out the roads. I had already made on the plan and also the one I suggested to make and submitted to him the plan which he approved of, then he told me to mark the road on the ground and he would come out and look at it, and make a bid for the construction of the same which was accepted. I also found gravel on the ground and I proposed to cover the roads with gravel which he accepted. This together with other work gave me occupation between 2 & 3 years in the hardest times on account of the expectation of war.”

After the closing of the civil war the pace of business quickened considerable for Swain Nelson. An advertisement to prepare plans for Union and Lincoln Park in Chicago caught Nelson’s eye. He chose to submit only on Union Park but after his plan was reviewed by the Park committee of Alderman he was also invited to submit as plan for Lincoln Park as well. Though time for the submittal was short the committee was so impressed with Nelson’s work that they extended the time for his submittal. Olaf Benson had just returned from the war and was immediately pressed into service. Nelson sent him to take measurements and record observations of the property. Rushed in his efforts, Nelson did not expect his plans to be accepted. To his surprise he was awarded both contracts at a fee of $200.00.

In addition to the contract for preparing the plans for the parks, Nelson’s bid to construct the improvements was also accepted. With this work in hand, Benson, whose knowledge of English was much better than his cousin’s, became Nelson business partner. The two built a home for Benson on the grounds of the converted cemetery, as Benson would serve as the first superintendent of Lincoln Park. By the third year of construction, the team had excavated the lakes, distributed the material from the excavations and made roads. Encouraged by alderman Iver (sp) Larsen, the principal promoter of the Park, Nelson had borrowed heavily to complete the work.

At the end of the third year, the high picket fence surrounded the grounds was taken down and the public admitted to Lincoln Park, the first public park in Chicago. Crowds of visitors arrived by carriages and on foot. Chicago papers published extravagant praise of the Park and from that time on Lincoln Park was always filled with people on Sundays.

Charged with maintaining and improving the park, Nelson recruited Mr. Falk and Peter Hoffman from Sweden. Falk relieved Benson as charge of the teamsters. Hoffman took charge of building the Pavilion in the park.

As a result of the enormous success of Lincoln Park, the people of Chicago voted overwhelming in favor of taxes to expand Lincoln Park and to create new parks in the newly formed West and South park districts.

The Great Fire of 1871, delayed implementation of park taxes and improvements for a time. In the interim, Nelson and Benson planted large forest trees within the park and large elms on Ashland Avenue for Sam Walker, who owned most of the land which fronted on the avenue. Walker eventually went bankrupt owing Nelson and Benson $17,000. As a result they ended up as landowners along the boulevard.

The West Park Commissioners then advertised for bids to excavate lakes in Douglas Park. Once again Nelson was the low bidder. With new work in Douglas Park, Nelson’s uncle Johnson was recruited from Sweden to be park superintendent. Johnson and his wife lived on the park grounds as Benson did in Lincoln Park. Nelson, Benson, and Johnson, continued to make improvements to the park including the planting of large forest trees. Nelson’s contract with the West Park District until 1878 when the appointment of a new Park Commissioner occurred. For some reason, the commissioner ceased to collect park taxes and Nelson’s contract came to an end.

Nelson continued park work until 1893. During this period he also completed significant works in Elmhurst, Illinois, for Mr. Lathrope, L.B. Bryan’s brother-in-law, Mr. Hagew (sp), Seth Hodham, and Rockwood Brothers. At this time he purchase 40 acres in Glen View, Illinois, on which he created a nursery.

Swain Nelson died on January 18, 1917. His work at Graceland Cemetery was continued by landscape architect, Ossian C. Simonds, who is generally credited with this work. The work of the two Swedish landscape gardeners, Nelson and Benson, in Lincoln, Union, and Douglas Parks would be refined and modified over the years by a variety of now more well-known landscape architects such as William LeBaron Jenney, Jens Jensen, and Frederick Law Olmsted, yet it was their early work that established the foundation of the wonderful Chicago Park System.

An early employee of the firm of Nelson and Benson was Jens Jensen, a young Danish immigrant who would go on to become of the great landscape architects of the 20th century. Danes in Chicago often lived in mixed Scandinavian communities and intermarried with Norwegians and Swedes. The earliest Danish community in Chicago was around Randolph and LaSalle Streets in the 1860s. Around 1870, some Danes established a South Side enclave around 37th and State Street that persisted until the 1920s, but the main axis of Danish and Norwegian settlement crossed the Chicago River and moved northwest along Milwaukee Avenue during the 1870s. By 1880, two-thirds of the city’s 6,000 Danes lived in Milwaukee Avenue neighborhoods. A new, heavily Norwegian and Danish neighborhood also began to take shape east of Humboldt Park.

After coming to the United States in 1884 at the age of twenty-four, Jens Jensen worked for a short time in Florida and Iowa before settling into a street-sweeping job for the Chicago West Parks District in 1886. The Jensens moved into the tight-knit Scandinavian community around Humboldt Park. Jensen searched for other work during the off-season periods to supplement his meager income as a laborer in the parks in order to provide for his young family. During the winters, he found nursery work with Swain Nelson. Through his work with Nelson at the nursery, Jensen was able to further his horticultural skills and sharpen his knowledge of the plants that grew well around the Chicago region.

Over the years, Jensen would take weekend trips into the countryside, traveling the rail lines to their outermost limits. He began a lifelong study of the landscape and plants of the Chicago region. “He took comfort in American plants similar to ones that he remembered from Denmark: the blackberries, hawthorns, and wild roses of thickets and borders. He also found similarities in physiography , for here were sand hills (dunes) and vast plains. And, in the prairie, Jensen saw great similarities to the sea that had fascinated him as a young boy. Like the sea, the prairies had “the distinct power of drawing one out, of arousing one’s curiousity to investigate what is beyond the horizon.” Yet Jensen noted that “the prairies give a far more secure feeling than the sea. The prairies are inhabited; they are human.”

Gradually, Jensen’s attraction toward the native plant communities of the region began to influence his work with the parks. Up to this time, he had undoubtedly been involved with the manicured flower beds and other formal plantins typical of the early park designs In Chicago’s West Parks. In 1888, however, Jensen claims to have created what he called “the American Garden” in a corner of Union Park. The only documentation of this garden is from an undated plan signed by “James” Jensen. Exactly how Jensen moved from street sweeper to garden designer is unclear from existing park records. It is likely that he gradually assumed more responsibility for plantings and was allowed to tinker with this corner of Union Park. Up until 1885, when the animal house in Lincoln Park was opened, the seventeen-acre Union Park had held the zoological garden and was one of the city’s major attractions. After the bears, eagles, and monkeys were moved, the popularity of Union Park dwindled. Jensen’s creation of the American Garden may have been an effort to spark a new interest in the park.

Jensen would go on to design Humboldt Park, Columbus Park, and the Garfield Park Conservatory. Jensen died in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin, on October 1, 1951.

Nelson, Benson, and Jensen were not the only Scandinavians to influence the development of Chicago parks. Per Samuel Pederson [1830-1903] was born on June 15th in Vä, Skåne, Sweden. He arrived in the United States in 1850 moving west to Chicago four years later. There he started a nursery northwest of the city, eventually acquiring over 500 acres of land. Peterson developed an innovative technique for transplanting large trees to the parks and boulevards of Chicago. One of the most significant efforts of his company, Rose Hill Nursery, was the transplanting of trees to Jackson Park in 1893 for the World’s Columbian Exposition. By this time virtually every tree on the streets of Chicago were from Rose Hill Nursery. Peterson was active in Swedish-American civic and religious groups. The King of Sweden knighted him for his accomplishments.

Several years after his death in Chicago on January 19, 1903, his family donated 160 acres of land to the city for a tuberculosis sanitarium. In the 1970s 46-acres of the site became a nature preserve and another 24 acres Peterson Park in memory of his accomplishments.

Svend Peter Jacob Lollesgaard [1861- ], was born on October 14, 1861, in Verle, Denmark. Immigrating initially to the United States in 1872 at the age of 12, Lollesgaard returned to Denmark to pursue his education. He immigrated on November 16, 1883.[24] He became a naturalized citizen on December 18, 1893.[25] He became a full member of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1904. Lollesgaard designed Evergreen Cemetery in Chicago in 1910.[26] He scheme envisioned on flush monuments, with the cemetery conceived as a park. A similar scheme was developed for Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, which opened in 1912.[27] Lollesgaard maintained offices at 156 Washington Street in the city. In 1910, he was living in Joliet, Illinois.[28] By 1921, Lollesgaard was living in Riverside, Illinois.[29] The Scandinavians whose careers overlapped in the city, Nelson, Benson, Peterson, Jensen, and Lollesgaard, played a major role in shaping the landscape of Chicago.

Other Scandinavians landscape gardeners were active in the Midwest. In 1895, Swedes Elof P. Holm [1872-1941][30] and Olaf J. Olson [1874 - ][31] immigrated to the United States in 1880.[32] They established a nursery in Rochester, Minnesota. Neil Neilsen [1867-1941] immigrated from Denmark to the United States in 1891.[33] His first job was in the horticultural department of the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.[34] Nielsen move to St. Paul to work for a leading horticulturalist and then to Mankato in 1901 where he took over the greenhouse operation that Herman Lorentz had founded in 1877. His enterprise evolved to be the largest supplier of plant material in southern Minnesota.
Other Scandinavians practiced their profession in the Midwest. A native of Warmeland, Sweden, N. N. Carlson of Topeka, Kansas, served as an estate gardener for many years.[35] A landscape painter, Swede Fabian Brydolf (also listed at Brydolph) [1819-1897],[36] a native of Ostergöhand, Sweden, was similarly an estate gardener in Des Moines, Iowa.[37] Brydolf immigrated to the United States in 1841, settling first in Cleveland.[38]

Another Swede who initially settled in Chicago wasa Anton Lindahl [abt. 1869-].[39] Lindahl immigrated in 1891 and lived for a time in Elsah, Illinois.[40] Lindahl served as a landscape gardener, eventually assuming the position of city forester in Kirkwood, Missouri.[41] Lindahl immigrated in 1891.

In addition to their significant contribution in the Midwest, Scandinavians were also active on the West Coast. Johannes Reimers was born in Norway on Dec. 31, 1856.[42] Reimers immigrated in 1885.He appears to have settled in California when quite young. He was an established painter and pastelist[43] at the time of his wedding in Oakland in 1883. Born in Bergen, Norway on Feb. 2, 1859, and after arriving in California in 1880, Marie Arentz wed Reimers in Oakland three years later.Also a writer he published a novel set in Norway entitled Unto the Heights of Simplicity.[44] While a resident of San Francisco in 1907-19, he studied at the Institute of Art. His art work was exhibited in the Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915 and San Francisco Academy of Art, 1916-. His works are in the collection of the Oakland Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. Displaying a wide range of interest, Reimers was an active participant in the Ruskin Club of the University of California[45] and maintaining a friendship with the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.As well as an artist, he was also landscape architect for the San Joaquin Division of the Santa Fe Railway. While it is not known what stations were within Reimers responsibility, the line ran from Los Angeles through Bakersfield to Stockton and on to the San Francisco bay area at Richmond. Living in Stockton at the time, he delivered a paper on railway gardening at the Pacific States Floral Congress in 1901.[46] He laid out the planting of Fresno’s Roeding Park, after the property was donated to the city in 1903.[47] The park was seventy-five acres at the time.[48] Apparently Reimers split time between Stockton and Berkeley. In 1905, he purchased lots 2, 3, and 4, Block 5, from The Berkeley Development Company in Hopkins Terrace.[49] In 1906, Reimers also designed Hobart Park in Fresno on Q Street between Divisadero and Merced Streets.[50] The commissioners of Mooney Park, a 100 acre tract of valley oaks, in Tulares retained Reimers in December 1910.[51] By 1910, Marie and Johannes had three children, Emma, Alita, and Henry E.[52] Reimers also designed the garden for the headquarters of Roeding’s California Nursery Company in the Old Adobe Building in Niles, California.[53] Reimers was a good friend of writer, Jack London,[54] who often stayed with him when visiting Stockton.[55] On May 4, 1095, London spoke to the Critic Club at Reimers’ home in Stockton.[56] In the summer of 1906, Reimers supervised the planting of trees, vines, and shrubs, and a pyracantha hedge at the Wolf House[57] at what is now the Jack London Ranch State Historic Park.[58] Reimers also wrote one of the earliest reviews of London’s Call of the Wild.Divorced from Marie, he was living in San Leandro by 1930.[59] Marie was living in Berkeley.[60] A self-taught artist, she began painting at age 69 while a resident of Berkeley. She exhibited locally with the Berkeley League of Fine Arts in 1929 and in 1930 sent 14 of her watercolors to Paris for exhibition. She was a resident of Berkeley until her death on Jan. 17, 1946. Reimers died of pneumonia in San Leandro on Aug. 22, 1953.
Svea Victoria Lindquist was born in Göteborg, Sweden in 1881. She was from an affluent family and attended private school where she met Helga Ottila Olson. Svea studied landscape gardening and apprenticed in gardens in Göteborg, Helsinki, and England from 1894-1912. In 1916 she came to the United States for a visit and stayed to take a position as governess. By 1921 she was in Maine working as governess for the Robert Law family. Helga's family manufactured shoes in Göteborg. She also studied landscape gardening in Europe. In the early 1900s, Helga came to the United States, to visit a brother who raised strawberries on Bainbridge Island near Seattle and decided to stay. By 1925 the ladies had reunited and were living in California, in the San Francisco peninsula. They had became gardening consultants for wealthy clients who owned estates in the San Mateo area. In the 1930's they established "The Rock Garden Nursery" in San Mateo. They exhibited at the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1939-1940 where they earned a Certificate of Merit. In 1943 Svea and Helga moved to Santa Cruz County, where their friends, the Laws, were living at Lawridge Farm and breeding polo ponies. They settled into the Landreth Errington house on the Lawridge Farm with life tenancy granted by Robert Law. In 1948, they met Roy and Francis Rydell who were in the area looking for a caretaker's job. The ladies asked the Laws if they could use another set of hands. The Laws agreed and the Rydells settled into the guest house "Cowslip" where they stayed for a year and a half until 1952-53. Svea and Helga introduced Roy to their gardening clientele on the peninsula where they were still engaged as gardening consultants. Roy, then a stuggling young artist, became a landscape architect through the efforts and training of these two ladies. Svea and Helga lived and gardened at the "Little Farm House." Helga passed away on March 31, 1971.[61] Svea died on April 16, 1973.[62]

Annel Roi Rydell was engaged as the landscape architect for the former Pacific Garden Mall and other notable places in Santa Cruz including: Abbott Square beside the Octagon Museum, Plaza Branciforte on Soquel Avenue, the Town Clock Plaza, the Communication Building at University of California Santa Cruz, Deer Park Center, Santa Cruz City Hall Annex, and the Alfred Hitchcock estate. He died on October 26, 2000.[63]

Otto Emil Holmdahl (1883-1967) was born on June 1, 1883 in Falkenberg, Sweden.[64] He studied both naval architecture and landscape design at Chalmers University in Göteborg. On October 15, 1907, Holmdahl arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia aboard the ship Chippowa, settling in Seattle.[65] In emigration papers from Vancouver listed Holmdahl as a ship builder.[66] In 1918, he registered to serve in the United States military during World War I.[67] At the time he was gardener to William Howarth at 3330 Grand in Everett, Washington.[68] On August 7, 1919, he became a naturalized United States citizen.[69] Holmdahl traveled back to Sweden on numerous occasions. August 30, 1923, about the Neuiw Amsterdam from Southhampton after a trip to Sweden.[70] August 15, 1926 from Southhampton aboard the Caronia.[71] September 1, 1929, from Göteborg, aboard the Kungsholm.[72] On September 6, 1930, Holmdahl arrived in New York aboard the Drottningholm from Göteborg, Sweden.[73] As one of the first landscape architects practicing in the region, Holmdahl was an early advocate of the use of native plant materials and found inspiration in the ecology of the region. Around 1925, he laid out the grounds for James Garfield Eddy home on Lake Washington in Medina.[74] The Eddy estate was entered on the National Register in 1980. A garden for Dr. M.C. Lyle on Puget Sound was developed in 1928.[75] In 1930 Holmdahl completed the design of the Robert P. Greer garden in Seattle.[76] That same year he designed the garden of Lawrence Colman at 9343 Fauntleroy Way in the Fauntleroy neighborhood in Seattle.[77] He also designed the grounds of the William Boeing, Jr. home. The rockery at the south entry of the Seattle Arboretum at Arboretum Drive and Lake Washington Boulevard was apparently designed by Holmdahl around 1938.[78] In 1954, Holmdahl consulted on the grounds of Prentice Bloedel on Bainbridge Island. Thomas Church, Richard Haag, Noble Hoggson, and Fujitaro Kubota also contributed to the garden, now known as the Bloedel Reserve.[79] For Elizabeth Ayer’s new home at 47 The Highlands in Seattle, Holmdahl designed a garden in 1956. He may have designed the cast concrete rockery of the Davis Residence in Crescent Beach in Normandy Park.[80] Holmdahls’ work became synonymous with the great estates of the “gold coast” of Lake Washington, many of these with Arthur L. Loveless (1873-1971).[81] Holmdahl also apparently designed the courtyard of Loveless’studio building.[82] Holmdahl was one of 26 landscape architects who met in January 25, 1946 to form the Washington Society of Landscape Architects. He was identified at this meeting as the nursery liason representative of the group.[83] In 1930 Holmdahl and his wife, Andrey, were living in Seattle.[84] Holmdahl designed the grounds of the Washington State Library in Olympia [1954-1959] and Aberdeen Community Hospital in Aberdeen in 1959. On December 20, 1957, he was named to the Municipal Arts Commission of Seattle.[85] With architect Paul Thiry, he served as landscape architect for the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962.[86] That year, Holmdahl was a judge of the Seattle Rhododendron Society.[87] During the course of his career, Otto designed parks in Bremerton, Ellensburg, Aberdeen, and other cities in Washington and Oregon. His work is also seen in Washington Park in Seattle. Holmdahl died in Seattle on March 2, 1967.[88] Although, Scandinavian-Americans made significant contributions to the development of the profession of landscape architecture during the United States, particularly during the last half of the 19th century, it is less clear what contribution they may have made on the development of modernism in landscape design. During the early years of the 20th century, for example, there are numerous citations of German design and planning publications by writers in the United States. There are few such citations of works by Danish, Finnish, Swedish, or Norwegian writers. Perhaps this is because the the small Scandinavian-American population and its concentration did not lead to widespread adoption of design ideas. While many Americans of English descent, such as Frederick Law Olmsted and Charles Eliot, read German, fewer knew the Scandinavian languages, thus making publications inaccessible. Similarly the “grand tour” of Europe for young Americans often did not involve visits to the Scandinavian countries. Americans of
Scandinavian design did begin to gain prominence in 1922 when Finn Eliel Saarinen[89] received a second place award for the entry in the Chicago Tribune building competition in Chicago. Immigrating to Chicago in 1923, Saarinen prepared an urban design plan for the Chicago lakefront which proposed a boulevard which paralleled the lake and linked the adjoining parks. The boulevard was terminated at either end by a plaza. Returning from summer vacation in Finland, Saarinen began to teach at the University of Michigan in the Fall of 1923. One of his students was the son of George Booth, later the founder of Cranbrook. In 1924, he prepared a scheme for the Detroit Riverfront. Saarinen’s plan for Detroit reflected the work of Swedish architect, Ragnar Östberg [1866-1945] for the Stockholm City Hall, and Danish architect Martin Nyrop’s [1849-1925] Copenhagen City Hall.

It is not known in Jens Jensen, Svend Lollesgaard, and other Danish-Americans knew of their counterpart in Denmark, Carl Theodore Sǿrenson [1893- 1979].[90] Sørensen, who completed over two thousand projects. A prolific writer, Sørensen did not publish in English nor were any of his projects built outside of Denmark. Nonetheless he is considered one of the twentieth-centuries first modernist landscape architects.

In 1931, Swedish sculptor, Carl Milles, took up residence in Bloomfield Hills, and joined the sculpture faculty at Cranbrook.[91] From his arrival until his return to Sweden in 1951 and subsequent death in 1955, the sculpture department at Cranbrook would be associated with Milles. His work on large scale commissions for public spaces in America and frequent exhibitions earned him a substantial reputation in this country.

Many of his sculptural pieces were of such scale that they might be considered works of landscape architecture in their own right. The Peace Memorial for St. Paul, Minnesota, the Aloe Plaza fountain, Meeting of the Waters, in St. Louis, Missouri, and the Fountain of the Faith, Falls Church, Virginia, are of particular interest.
Scandinavian-American landscape gardeners and landscape architects in the first century of the country’s development, were not present in the numbers of their English and German counterparts. Professional gardening societies did not seem to emerge within the Scandinavian-American community as they did within those of the Germans and other ethnic groups. Nor can it be argued that a clearly Scandinavian landscape style capture the imagination of the American public as did Japanese design. Nonetheless, important practitioners did exist. Their impact upon the communities and regions within which they practiced was significant. Second generation Scandinavian-American landscape architects such as Garrett Eckbo and Roy Rydell of Scandinavian descent would also contribute to the development of the profession in America. Other Americans of Scandinavian descent, such as Tom Oslund of Minneapolis, continue to contribute to the evolution of the profession, ever mindful of their heritage. Oslund, for example, would say of his work: “I’m Norwegian with a Viking spirit inside—I need to have a lot of light.”[92]
As with many ethnic groups, Scandinavians gradually assimilated into the American melting pot. By 1920 on North Dakota’s entire population was over ten percent Scandinavian. By 1980, only a few counties in Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, were more than ten percent Scandinavian, with pockets of large Scandinavian populations in Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Utah. Over time the distinct contribution of Scandinavian landscape gardeners and horticulturalists merged into a grander pattern of American landscape architecture. It is time we recognize that the heritage of landscape architecture in this country finds its origins in the contributions of many immigrant contributions, including English, Italian, German, Japanese and others. Not the least of that of the Swedes, Danes, Finns, and Norwegians that would their way to America.

[1] Bűhler, Karl-Dietrich, The Scandinavian Garden, London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2000, Introduction.
[2] A Guide To
[3] Ibid.
[4] Lockwood, Alice G. B., Gardens of Colony and State, The Garden Club of America: 2000, 183.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, 186.
[8]
[9] Garrett, Wilbur E., Editor, Historical Atlas of the United States, Washington, D. C.: The National Geographic Society, p. 37.
[10] Treib, Mark, Modern Landscape Architecture: A Critical Review, Boston, MIT Press, 1994, p. 133.
[11] Public Park Association of Providence. “Niles Bierragaard Schubarth.” Parks of Providence and Other Cities. Providence, 1896. pp. 111-114.

[12] Jordy, William H., and Monkhouse, Christopher P. “Atwater, Stephen.” Buildings on Paper: Rhode Island Architectural Drawings, 1825-1945. Providence, 1982. pp. 207-208.

[13] Garrett, Historical Atlas of the United States, p. 53.
[14] See http://www.njorchids.org/ABOUT_US/memoria.htm
[15] Hillbrand, Percie V., The Swedes in America, Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Company, 1967, 41-42.
[16] 1930 United States Census of Rockport, Maine, Enumeration District 4, Sheet4B.
[17] Igleheart, Elizabeth, “The Design Legacy of Hans Heistad,” Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Newsletter, Fall 1991.
[18] Mattor, Theresa, and Teegarden, Lucie, Maine Landscape, Camden: Down East Books, 2009, p. 156.
[19] Jensen, Jens, Siftings, Chicago: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, 1939, p. 76-77, see also Jane Roy Brown, “Skylands – A Jens Jensen Landscape in Maine,” p. 20.
[20] Warming, E. (1895) Plantesamfund - Grundtræk af den økologiske Plantegeografi. P.G. Philipsens Forlag, Kjøbenhavn. 335 pp.

[21] Maine Landscape, p. 163.
[22] Griffin, Pamela, Camden Hills State Park Landscape Report, c. 1997, see also Griffin, Pamela, “National and State Parks: A Brief Overview of Design Development,” Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks & Landscapes Journal, Winter 2001, pp. 1 and 3-6.
[23] “Autobiography of Swain Nelson” a typescript resides in the Gyllenhaal Family Tree Project Archives and the Academy of the New Church Archives, Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania, see: http://www.gyllenhaal.org/SwainNelsonAutobio.html

[24] 1900 United States Federal Census for Chicago, Illinois, Enumeration District 772, Sheet 13.
[25] United States Passport Application, November 20, 1913.
[26] http://www.evergreeencemetery-illinois.com/dm20/en_US/locations/03/0304/history.page
[27] http://www.woodlawncemeteryofchicago.com/dm20/en_US/locations/62/6244/history.page?
[28] 1910 United States Federal Census for Joliet, Illinois, Enumeration District 180, Sheet 1A.
[29] United States Passport Application, November 10, 1921.
[30] 1900 Census of the United States for St. Paul, Minnesota, Enumeration District 88, p. 10. See also 1930 Census of the United States for St. Paul, Minnesota, Enumeration District 62-83, p. 12A.
[31] 1930 Census of the United States for St. Paul, Minnesota, Enumeration District, 62-74, p. 7B.
[32] 1910 Census of the United States for St. Paul, Minnesota, Enumeration District 95, p. 11B, see also 1920 Census of the United States for St. Paul, Minnesota, Enumeration District 88, p. 13B. Olson became a naturalized citizen in 1896.
[33] 1910 Census of the United States, Enumeration District 22, Sheet 9201. See also Minnesota Death Index, 1908-1922. Neilsen died on July 14, 1941.
[34] See a brief biographical sketch of Nielsen at http://www.mankato.net/neilsen/php3.
[35] Connelley, William Elsey, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, Vol. 4, p. 1764.
[36] 1880 United States Census of Burlington, Iowa, Enumeration District 117, p. 41.
[37] Antrobus, Augustine M. History of Des Moines County, Iowa, Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1915, p. 188, see also, Portrait and Biographical Album of Des Moines, Chicago: Acme Publishing Company, 1888.
[38] The 1860 and 1880 Census of Burlington, Iowa, lists Brydolf as an artist/painter.
[39] 1920 United States Federal Census of Kirkwood, Missouri, Enumeration District 113, Sheet 3B.
[40]1900 Census of the United States for Elsah, Illinois, Enumeration District 53, p. 2.
[41] 1930 United States Federal Census of Kirkwood, Missouri, Enumeration District 95-3, Sheet 14A, see also Historic Kirkwood Landmarks brochure, City of Kirkwood, Missouri.
[42] California Death Index, 1940-1977.
[43] “Plans Program,” Oakland Tribune, September 12, 1917, and “Frolich to Tell of Clay Modelling,” October 14, 1917, p. 39.
[44] Reimers, Johannes, Unto the Heights of Simplicity, Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1900.
[45] “Ruskin Club” Oakland Tribune, January 31, 1908, p. 7, and February 8, 1908, p. 2.
[46] Reimers, Johannes, “Railway Gardening in California,” Proceedings Pacific States Floral Congress, San Francisco, 1901, p. 75.
[47] Rehart, Catherine Morison, The Valley’s Legends and Legacies III, Fresno: Quill Driver Books, 1999, p. 25.
[48] “Roeding Park” Fresno Bee, April 2, 1953, p. 2.
[49] “Official Records,” Oakland Tribune, November 9, 1095, p. 15.
[50] Powell, John Edward, “Hobart Park, Historic Resources Inventory Nomination,” City of Fresno, August 31, 1994, and Rehart, Catherine Morison, The Valley’s Legends and Legacies III, Fresno: Quill Driver Books, 1999, p. 299.
[51] Small, Kathleen Edwards, History of Tulares County, Chicago: S. J. Clark and Company, 1926, p. 281.
[52] 1910 United States Census of Stockton, California, e.d. 136, p. 1B.
[53] “Another View of the Old Adobe in Niles”, The Daily Review, Hayward, CA, August 4, 1974, p. 12.
[54] “California Artists Honor Jack London,” Oakland Tribune, March 26, 1920, p. 18.
[55] London, Charmain, The Book of Jack London, New York: The Century Company, 1921, ch. XXV, p. 16.
[56] “London’s Anarchic Talk,” Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1905, p. 12.
[57] Cultural Resources of the Jack London State Historic Park, 1987 , p. 63.
[58] Utah State University Archives, The Jack London Papers, Box 16, Pottawattamie County Historical Society, Reimers to Charmain London, Nov. 4, 1927, and Feb. 6, 1947.
[59] 1930 United States Census of San Leandro, e.d 1-240, p. 3B.
[60] 1930 United States Census of Berkeley California, e.d. I-320, p. 13A.
[61] California Death Index, 1940-1997.
[62] California Death Index 1940-1997.
[63] Social Security Death Index indicated that Annel Roy Rydell was born on September 17, 1915. See also 1930 United States Federal Census of Huntington Park, California, Enumeration District 19-1336, p. 1A. The census data indicates that Rydell was born in Minneapolis and Norwegian-American parents. Born in Minneapolis, MN on Sept. 17, 1915. "Roy" Rydell studied at the Minneapolis Art Institute before moving to Los Angeles in 1929. He further studied there at the Chouinard Art School and USC followed by work at UC Berkeley and at Ecole de la Grand-Chaumière in Paris.
[64] Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S. 1895-1956.
[65] Ibid.
[66] Ibid.
[67] World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.
[68] Ibid.
[69] U.S. Naturalization Records, 1795-1972.
[70] New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957.
[71] Ibid.
[72] Ibid.
[73] Ibid.
[74] http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=1059 , see also http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/wa/King/state2.html , see also “Born of Trees: A Timberman’s Estate is Revived To Reflect Its Colonial Bones,” Seattle Times, November 3, 2002.
[75] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920719&slug=1502851 , see also “Georgian Colonial: This Classic Design Fits A Contemporary Family, Seattle Times, July 18, 1992.
[76] http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/historicalsite/QueryResult.aspx?ID=-1705086475 , http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!239209!0#focus , see also “A Seattle Garden on the Estate of Mrs. Robert P. Greer,” House and Garden, December 1936.
[77] http://fauntleroy.net/newsletters/nlwinter08.pdf
[78] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030829&slug=pacific-pnwl31
[79] https://digital.lib.washington.edu/php/architect/record.phtml?type=structure&structureid=3318
[80] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030829&slug=pacific-pnwl31
[81] Oschner, Jeffrey Karl, ed., Shaping Seattle Architecture, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.
[82] “Bone of Tree”, Seattle Times, Nov. 3, 2002
[83] http://www.wasla.org/whatisla.htm
[84] 1930 United States Census of Seattle, Washington, E.D. 17-91, p. 25B.
[85] “Art Commission Member Named,” Seattle Times, December 20, 1957.
[86] The Weeders Guide, The Palladium Times, Oswego, New York, July 23, 1962.
[87] http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v16n4/v16n4-seattleshow.htm
[88] “Otto Holmdahl, Landscaper,” Seattle Times, March 5, 1967.

[89] De Long, David G., “Eliel Saarinen and the Cranbrook Tradition in Architecture and Urban Design,” Design in America, The Cranbrook Vision 1925-1950, Detroit: The Founders Society of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1983, p. 47.
[90] Andersson, Sven-Ingvar and Høyer, Steen, C.Th Sørensen, Landscape Modernist, Copenhagen, The Danish Architectural Press, 2001, p.
[91] Marter, Joan, “Sculpture and Painting,” Ibid, p. 185.
[92] http://www.landscapeonline.com/research/article/11598

2009-12-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

EVOLUTION OF THE TEXAS LANDSCAPE
©2009 by Kurt Culbertson
c.1825 Austin City Cemetery/Oakwood Cemetery founded
1851 San Pedro Springs Park established in San Antonio
1857 Frederick Law Olmsted’s Travels through Texas published
1871 Glenwood Cemetery founded in Houston.
1879 Riverside Cemetery in Wichita Falls established.
1899 Braeckinridge Park in San Antonio created.
c.1900 Texas State Capitol Grounds in Austin by Charles Gilbert
1907 Boice Residence, XIT Ranch, in Channing by George Kessler
1907 George Kessler’s Master Plan for Fair Park in Dallas
1907 George Kessler’s Parks and Boulevard System Plan for Fort Worth
1907 George Kessler’s Park Plan for Burk Burnett Park in Fort Worth
1907 Wilbur David Cook’s Plan for Highland Park
1907 George Kessler designs Ryan Place subdivision Fort Worth
1909 Rice University Master Plan in Houston by Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson
19?? George Kessler’s Plan for Highland Park
19?? Arthur Comey’s Park and Boulevard Plan for Houston
1910 W. J. Neale Residence by Olmsted Brothers
1910 Untitled Project in Tyler by George Kessler
1910 A. W. Grant property master plan in Fort Worth by George Kessler
1911 George Kessler’s City Plan for Dallas
1910 Cameron Park Master Plan in Waco by George Kessler
1911 Texas Christian University Master Plan by Fort Worth architects Waller and Field
1911-12 John P. Withers Residence San Antonio by Olmsted Brothers
1912 San Antonio Regional Improvement projects by Omsted Brothers
1912 E.A. Peden garden by Edward Dewson
1913 Arthur Coleman Comey’s City Plan for Houston
1913 William Ward Watkins designs Courtlandt Place subdivision in Houston
1913 San Antonio Orphan’s Home by Olmsted Brothers
1915 Brackenridge Park Golf Course San Antonio by A. W. Tillinghast
1915 George Kessler’s Park Plan for Hermann Park Houston
n.d. Oak Hills Country Club Golf Course San Antonio by A. W. Tillinghast
1916 Houston Exposition Grounds Master Plan by George Kessler
1916 Cleveland Park Master Plan in Houston by George Kessler
1916 Highland Park Master Plan in Houston by George Kessler
1916 Settergast Park Master Plan in Houston by George Kessler
1916 E. L. Flippen Residence in Dallas by George Kessler
1916 Hugh E. Prather Residence in Dallas by George Kessler
1916 E. Sanger Residence in Dallas by George Kessler
1916 Highland Park, Phase Two in Dallas by George Kessler
1916 Laguna Gloria in Austin created
1916 Shadyside Subdivision in Houston by George Kessler
1916 East Baldwin Park in Houston by George Kessler
1917 Henry Staiti garden in Westmoreland, Houston, by Edward Dewson
1917 Zilker Park in Austin founded
1917 San Antonio Japanese Gardens begin construction
1917 Munson Park Master Plan in Denison by George Kessler
1917 Forest Park Master Plan in Denison by George Kessler
1918 Camp Travis Master plan in San Antonio by George Kessler
1918 Camp MacArthur Master plan in Waco by George Kessler
1918 Camp Bowie master plan in Fort Worth by George Kessler
1919 Sherman Comprehensive Plan by George Kessler
1920 Miraflores Garden established in San Antonio
1920 Additions to and Renovation of Fort Worth Country Club by A. W. Tillinghast
c.1920 San Antonio Riverwalk Plan by Robert Hugman
1921 Wichita Falls Comprehensive Plan by George Kessler
1921-1932 Robert J. Neal Residence in Houston by Olmsted Brothers
1922 Young Residence in Mineral Wells by George Kessler
1922Fort Worth City Plan by Olmsted Brothers
1922 Mrs. George M. Aldredge Residence in Dallas by Olmsted Brothers
1923 William Ward Watkins designs Broadacres subdivision in Houston

1923 Texas State Park Bard created under Governor Pat Neff
1923 El Paso Comprehensive Master Plan by George Kessler
1924 Plan for the Houston Zoological Gardens by Hare and Hare
1924 Campus Plan for Texas Tech University in Lubbock by William Ward Watkins and Sanguinet, Staats, and Hedrick
1924 Brook Hollow Golf Club Dallas by A. W. Tillinghast
1924 Houston Country Club Estates by Olmsted Brothers
1924 River Oaks subdivision in Houston by Hare and Hare
1925 Fort Worth Park System Master Plan by Olmsted Brothers
1925 University of Texas Master Plan in Austin by Olmsted Brothers
1925-1928 Fort Worth Parks by Olmsted Brothers
1926-1927 Alex Camp Residence in Dallas by Olmsted Brothers
1926-1928 Bayou Bend in Houston by Ruth London and Fleming and Shephard
1927 Houston Botanical Gardens in Hermann Park by Hare and Hare
1928 Texas Federation of Garden Clubs founded
1928 Hare and Hare plan the Monticello Addition of Fort Worth
c. 1928 Hare and Hare plan additions to Greenwood and Mount Olivet Cemeteries of Fort Worth
c. 1928 Hare and Hare plan the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens
1930 Dallas Park Board approves plans to make White Rock lake into a park.
1931 Paul Cret Master Plan for the University of Texas at Austin
1933 Master Plan for Southwestern University by Hage and Hage
1934 Twenty-four CCC projects created in Texas including Big Bend, Davis Mountains, Palo Duro Canyon, Caddo Lake, Huntsville State Park, Meridian State Park, Mineral Wells State Park, and White Rock Lake in Dallas.
1935 Lambert’s Landscape Company locates in Dallas
1935-37 Heyer Residence in River Oaks Houston by Fleming and Shepphard
1936 Construction of Chandor Gardens begins in Weatherford
1936 Landscaping of the San Jacinto Monument Houston by C. C. Fleming
1936 Additions to and Renovation of Bob-O-Links Golf Club Dallas by A. W. Tillinghast
1936 Reconstruction of Austin Country Club by A. W. Tillnghast
1936 Reconstruction of Bob-O-Links Country Club Dallas by A. W. Tillinghast
1936 Reconstruction of Ridgelea Country Club Fort Worth by A. W. Tillinghast
1936 Reconstruction of River Oaks Country Club Houston by A. W. Tillinghast
1936 Reconstruction of Guy Wortham Country Club (formerly known as Houston Country Club) by A. W. Tillinghast.
1936 Examination of Colonial Country Club by A. W. Tillinghast
1938 Rose Gardens in Hermann Park constructed
1939 DeGolyer Estate by Arthur Berger
1947 Texas City Memorial Cemetery designed by Houstonian Herbert Skogland
c.1948 Trinity University landscape master plan by Arthur and Marie Berger
1950 Santo Domingo Ranch Master Plan in Beeville by Arthur and Marie Berger
1950 Philips Residence in Preston Hollow by Arthur and Marie Berger
1950 Chapman Residence in University Park by Arthur and Marie Berger
1950 O.P. Leonard Estate in Fort Worth by Arthur and Marie Berger
1950-56 Berger Residence on Turtle Creek Dallas by Arthur and Marie Berger
1953 Leake Residence Garden by Arthur and Marie Berger in Highland Park
1953 McNaughton Residence in Preston Hollow by Arthur and Marie Berger
1953-54 Penson Residence in Highland park by Arthur and Marie Berger
1955 Decorative Center in Dallas by Arthur and Marie Berger
1955 Redevelopment Plan for the San Antonio Riverwalk led by Robert L. Frazer, Park Director
1955-1965 Exchange Business Park by Arthur and Marie Berger
1956-57 Haggerty Residence in Preston Hollow by Arthur and Marie Berger
1957 Temple Emanu-El by Arthur and Marie Berger
1957 Merritt House by Arthur and Marie Berger
1957-58 3525 Turtle Creek by Arthur and Marie Berger
1958 Texas Instrument Campus by Arthur and Marie Berger
1959 Hackberry Creek landscape in Highland Park by Arthur and Marie Berger
1959 St. Marks School of Dallas by Arthur and Marie Berger
1959 McDermott Residence in Highland Park by Arthur and Marie Berger
1959 Dallas City Library Rooftop Garden by Arthur and Marie Berger
1960 Edwards Residence in Highland Park by Arthur and Marie Berger
1960s Japanese Garden in Zilker Park in Austin by Isamu Taniguchi
1961 Shangri La Botanical Gardens founded in Orange
1962 Victoria Plaza San Antonio by Stewart King
1963 Great National Life Insurance Company by Arthur and Marie Berger
1964 Town Lake Austin by Stewart King
1967 Steves Garden San Antonio by Stewart King
1968 Hemisphere San Antonio landscape by Stewart King
1968-73 Richard B. Myrick and Associates design landscape of DFW
Dick Heidrick
1971 Texas A and M Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree accredited
1972 Hermann Park Master Plan by Lockwood, Andrews, Newnam and James Cummins
1974 Fort Worth Water Gardens designed by Philip Johnson
1974 The Woodlands by Wallace, Roberts, McHarg, and Todd
1977 Thanksgiving Square in Dallas by Philip Johnson
1980 Heritage Park in Fort Worth by Lawrence Halprin
1982 Dallas Arts District Master Plan by Sasaki Associates
1983 Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Garden by Dan Kiley
1984 Williams Square designed in Irving by Jim Reeves of SWA Group
1984 Moody Gardens Master Plan in Sir Goeffrey Jellicoe
1985 Burk Burnett Park in Fort Worth redesign by Peter Walker and Partners
1986 Fountain Place Plaza in Dallas by Dan Kiley
1988 I.B.M. Solana in Westlake Texas by Peter Walker and Partners
1992 Japanese Garden in Hermann Park in Houston created
1993 Hanna/Olin Master Plan for Hermann Park
1994 Baytown Nature Center by SWA Group
1995 Myrick Newman and Dahlberg design for Pioneer Plaza in Dallas
1996 Myrick Newman and Dahlberg design for Pegasus Plaza in Dallas
200? Peter Walker and Partners Plan for the Nasher Sculpture Garden
200? SWA Group plan for Buffalo Bayou Houston
2002 Fort Worth Children’s Zoo by Olin
2002 Rachosky House Dallas by Armstrong-Berger
2005 Fair Park Comprehensive Plan by Hargreaves and Associates
2008 Discovery Green design by Hargreaves and Associates
2008 Domain in Austin by Design Workshop
2009 Springwoods at The Woodlands by Design Workshop
2009 Lewisville Town Center by Design Workshop
2009 Buffalo Bayou Promenade by SWA Group
2009 Trinity River Corridor Design Guidelines by WRT
2009 Memorial Park Houston by Olin
2010 AT and T Canyons Course by Pete Dye and Bruce Lieske at TPC San Antonio
2010 George W. Bush Presidential Library landscape by Michael Van Valkenburgh
n.d River Oaks Country Club course in Houston designed by Donald Ross
n.d Sunset Grove Country Club course in Orange designed by Donald Ross
n.d. El Paso War Memorial by Olmsted Brothers
n.d. Gonzales State Park Master Plan by George Kessler
n.d Bastrop State Park founded
n.d Miraflores Park founded in San Antonio
n.d Alibandtes Flint Quarries National Monument
n.d Amistead National Recreation Area
n.d Big Bend National Park
n.d Big Thicket National Preserve
n.d Chamizal National Memorial
n.d Fort Davis National Historic Site
n.d Guadalupe Mountains National Park
n.d Lake Meredith National Recreation Area
n.d Lyndon B. Johnson National Historic Site
n.d Padre Island National Seashore
n.d Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site
n.d Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River
n.d San Antonio Missions National Historic Park
n.d Additions to and Renovation of Cedar Crest Golf Club Dallas by A. W. Tillinghast
n.d Additions to and Renovation of Dallas Country Club by A. W. Tillinghast
n.d Additions to and Renovation of Lakewood Country Club by A. W. Tillinghast
n.d Examination of San Antonio Country Club by A.W. Tillinghast
n.d Frito-Lay National Headquarters by Sasaki Associates
n.d. Addison Circle Park by Sasaki Associates
n.d. Rice University Landscape Improvements by Sasaki Associates
n.d. St. Edwards University Landscape Improvements by Sasaki Associates
n.d. University of North Texas at Dallas Master Plan by Sasaki Associates
n.d. Waterway Square at the Woodlands by Sasaki Associates
n.d. Baylor University Master Plan by JJR and F & S Partners.
n.d. A T and T Performing Arts Center in Dallas by JJR and Michel Desvigne

Lakewood Subdivision Dallas designed by ____
Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery established.
Fort Bliss National Cemetery established.
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery established
Houston National Cemetery established
Kerrville National Cemetery established
San Antonio National Cemetery established
Greenwood Cemetery in Fort Worth established
Mother Neff State Park created in Coryell County
Graduate program in Landscape Architecture created at the University of Texas
Landscape Architecture program created at the University of Texas at Arlington
Landscape Architecture program created at Texas Tech University
Llano or Amarillo Cemetery founded in Amarillo
Del Rio Cemetery founded in Del Rio
Irving Arts Center Sculpture Garden by Mahlon Perry
Master Plan for Sam Houston State University
Master Plan for Southern Methodist University
Master Plan for Baylor University
Master Plan for the University of Houston
Master Plan for Texas A and M University
Master Plan for Abilene Christian University
Master Plan for University of Texas El Paso
Master Plan for the University of North Texas
Blinn College Master Plan
n.d. First Colony Master Plan in Houston by SWA Group
n.d. Dallas West End Arts District Master Plan by SWA Group
n.d Firewheel Town Center in Garland by SWA Group
n.d Westlake Corporate Campus in Westlake by SWA Group
n.d. Brays Bayou Recreation Area in Harris County by SWA Group
n.d. Katy Trails by SWA Group
n.d. Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden Master Plan by SWA Group
n.d. Pine Lake Residence by SWA Group
n.d. Addison D.A.R.T. Transit System landscape by SWA Group
n.d. TXDOT Green Ribbon Project by SWA Group
n.d. Strait Lane Residence Dallas by Reed Hilderbrand
n.d. Meadowwood Residence by Edward Larabee Barnes. Restoration by Reed Hilderbrand.
n.d. Monte Vista Residence in San Antonio by Reed Hilberbrand.
19?? Arthur and Marie Berger’s Plan for Trinity University

SHAPING THE PUBLIC LANDSCAPE OF TENNESSEE

2009-11-28T15:37:00.000-07:00

SHAPING OF THE PUBLIC LANDSCAPE OF TENNESSEE
By Kurt Culbertson ©2009
The designed landscape of Tennessee is rich and varied – wonderful private gardens like Cheekwood and private subdivisions like Belle Meade provide the character of great cities like Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Nashville. But it addition to these private places, the public landscape heritage of this state is equally significant and valuable. Cemeteries, campuses, public buildings, and parks of a variety of scales, provide a lasting legacy as a foundation for contemporary Tennessee landscape architecture.
What I would like to provide in this text is not an exhaustive investigation into the public landscapes of Tennessee but rather a broad view of the evolution of that history. Many of the great practitioners of the 19th and 20th century have created works in Tennessee offering a wide variety of design expressions. There is much here to be treasured and much work to be done in preserving the landscape architectural heritage of this wonderful state.
Pioneer Landscapes:
The early designed landscapes of Tennessee were principally private landscapes, home grounds where wealthy planters and merchants could enjoy the benefits of their labor. [1] Gardens such as Rachel’s Garden at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage by Englishman William Frost are but one example. The building and grounds of Belmont in Nashville designed by German Adolphus Heiman, are another example of such grand living environment. But for the average Tennessean, public open space for community activities and relaxation were seldom found. Yet demand for such space was not great as the pleasures of the rural countryside were easily in each.

Cemeteries and Public Burial Grounds:
The growth of cities brought the need for public facilities such a burial grounds for the dead. Perhaps the earliest of public landscapes were cemeteries. Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis [1852] and Old Gray in Knoxville [1855] that same year were developed in a style similar to that of Mount Auburn near Boston [1831] and Spring Grove by Adolf Strauch in Cincinnati [1848] both of which gained national attention. These were grand romantic landscapes which served as de facto arboretums for their communities with great lawns, curving walkways and carriageways. Although specific designers of these late 19th cemeteries of the period cannot be identified, they often evolved through the hands of the local superintendent, who undoubtedly found their inspiration in these earlier works in the Midwest, Northeast, or Europe. Other memorial landscapes such as St. Mary’s Cemetery in Lawrence County were often vernacular landscapes shaped by local residents without specific reference to design traditions or theories. Nashville cemeteries Mount Olivet [1856], Mount Ararat [1869], and Greenwood [1888] provided places of rest for both the living and the dead.
Streetcar Parks and Amusement Grounds
The need for public entertainment in the form of parks was first captured in Tennessee cities by commercial interests and notably the street car lines who, as they did in other American cities, created parks at the end of their routes to encourage ridership, particularly on the weekends. While some park spaces such as Bickford Park in Memphis [1850] developed through the efforts of citizens, amble land for public recreation was in short supply. Commercial interests filled the gaps. Central Park in Memphis [1868][2] was perhaps the first, followed by Railroad or Central Park in Union City [1875], Spring Park [1885][3], Glendale [1885][4], in Nashville, Montgomery Park [1887] and East End Park [1887-late 1920s] in Memphis, Cherokee [1889]in Nashville, and Lancaster Park in Johnson City [c.1905].[5] These parks were far more amusement parks than the pastoral landscapes of New York’s Central Park. Such amusements as roller coasters, monkey cages, arcades, hot springs, theaters, and ice rinks were often found there.
Over time, some of these private lands, such as Nashville’s Glendale Park and Spring in Knoxville eventually came into public ownership. As in other American cities such as Milwaukee and Cincinnati, German beer gardens were often acquired and converted to public use such as Laitenberger’s in Nashville which eventually became Morgan’s Park, a process that would accelerate in the early 1920s with the advent of Prohibition. Others such as East End Park in Memphis reverted to private ownership and were developed for other uses. While the competition for the design of New York’s Central Park had been held in 1857, a reliable system of acquiring and maintaining public park land did not exist in Tennessee until the first decade of the 20th century.
Battlefields and Burials Grounds:
Ironically, the battlefields and national cemeteries which followed the War Between the States provided both permanent memorials of the great conflict and open space for the communities where these battles were fought. With the passage of almost twenty-five years since the end of the civil war, the desire to restore the dignity of the South, to symbolically heal the wounds of that war, and, at least among southerners to recognize those who fought in that war as heroes rather than traitors, led to the creation of military parks and national cemeteries throughout the region. The National Cemetery Act of 1867, led to the creation of seventy three cemeteries around the country, among them Fort Donelson in Dover near Nashville. In 1890 the Chickamauga and Chattanooga Military Park was established. Four years later came a similar park at Shiloh. Chattanooga and Knoxville National cemeteries were also an outgrowth of designed to preserve this hallowed ground. While the battlefields and cemeteries appear to be the work on military engineers, the grounds of the National Soldier’s Home in Johnson City [1902]were designed by Harold Caparn [1864-1945]of Newark, New Jersey.[6]
Born in England and educated in both London and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, Caparn also played a significant role in the design of the New York Zoo in the Bronx and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. He was assisted in Johnson City but Carl Anderson, who served as landscape superintendent of the National Soldier’s Home.
In addition to the federal government’s role in shaping the Tennessee landscape, the state also ws responsible for creating important public spaces. In 1871-1877, John Bogart [1836-1920] came to Nashville to design the grounds of the Tennessee State Capitol Grounds.[7] Trained as an engineer but with a deep interest in the classics, Bogart had worked with Frederick Law Olmsted on numerous projects. He served as assistant engineer during the construction of Central Park, and Prospect Park in New York, and worked with Olmsted on the plan for Riverside, Illinois. He also prepared the master plan for City Park in New Orleans. His plan for the State Capitol Grounds provided one of the earliest landscaped parks in Nashville.
The Tennessee Centennial:
As the state reached its 100th birthday, the Centennial Exposition was planned on what on the site of the West End Race Track. Julius Pitzman [1837-1923], had designed the West Side Park racetrack in 1884.[8] Pitzmann, from St. Louis, was noted for the design of “private places”, the prominent residential neighborhoods of the city. He was also involved in the creation of the great Forest Park of St. Louis and City Park in Little Rock as well.
Modeled after the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, the park featured neo-classical buildings, a man-made lake, and elaborate landscaping. The Tennessee Centennial Exposition was one of several industrial fairs that were held through the South in the years following the war. They were a way of reminding the country that the cities of Dixie were again open for business.
The Centennial Exposition created a great public park in the heart of Nashville. Landscape architect, W. F. Josolyne, played a key role in the creation of the Centennial Grounds.[9] J. H. McBride succeeded Josolyne as park horticulturalist of the park in 1909 and served until 1917 when George B. Moulder was hired by the park board.
The Movement to Public Parks and Parkways:
While streetcar parks, battlefields, and cemeteries provided the foundation for open space developed in Tennessee cities, the first movement toward truly public parks appeared to have occurred in Memphis. A series of yellow fever epidemics in In 1880, city fathers invited George Edwin Waring [1883-1898] to design a sanitary sewer system for the city. In 1880, George Edwin Waring, Jr. [1833-1898] designed a sanitary sewer system for Memphis.[10]
In response to a yellow fever epidemic, sanitary and the general order of the city became of paramount importance. In 1897, city fathers consulted with the firm of Olmsted Brothers as they considered creation of a park system for the city. To give further order to the growing commercial city, in 1900 hired George Edward Kessler [1862-1923][11] to prepare a parks and boulevard plan for the city. Why Memphis leaders chose Kessler over Olmsted is unknown. Perhaps it was his connection to the city’s railroad interests, the fact that his fee was half that of the Olmsted firm, or that he was well regarded by the German element of the community.
Kessler had earned fame a decade earlier in 1892 for the design of the park and boulevard system for Kansas City. Developed the same year as Frederick Law Olmsted’s plan for the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Kessler’s plan for the Kansas City park system is a bold and far reaching vision of the City Beautiful. Why Kessler was selected over other more prominent designers in unknown. Perhaps it was mere convenience given the relative proximity of Kansas City. In addition to his work for Kansas City parks, Kessler was also actively involved in the design of railroad station grounds. This experience resulted in contact and perhaps the design of station grounds and Lancaster Park in Jackson through the city’s railroad interests. Perhaps similar connections lead him to Memphis as well.
Kessler’s plan envisioned the redesign of the four historic squares of the city – Court, Market, Auction, and Exchange, the development of two small urban parks – Forest and Confederate, and the creation of two large parks of the city’s periphery – Overton and Riverside. The first three commissioners were L. B. McFarland, a city judge who has spent four years as an enlisted man in the Confederate army and who supposed Confederate Memorial societies throughout his life, Robert Galloway, who had earned the honorary title of Colonel, and John R. Godwin, a cotton factory and financial intermediary.
The commissioners desired to inspire civic pride and reduce civil unrest, the also sought to improve the economic condition of the community and promote a more progressive image. They also sought to imbue the city with a sense of history and pay their respects to the values expressed and sacrifices made in the war. Richmond had erected an equestrian statue of Robert E. Lee in 1890 to honor his service to the South. In a similar way, the Forrest Memorial Association sought to honor Nathan Bedford Forrest, but erecting a similar equestrian statue in Forrest Park. Kessler sought to honor his clients wishes with his design of the new park in 1902. Constructed in 1905 in the center of the city, Kessler’s plan makes pathways and plantings subordinate to the statue in the nine acre park. In a similar way, McFarland convinced the city to remove to city dump overlooking the river and create Confederate Square as well.[12]
A year after Kessler created a park and boulevard master plan for Memphis, the Nashville park board was created. The goal of the board was to create large parks in each of the four quadrants of the city – Centennial in the west, Shelby in the east, and Hadley in the north. This goal was achieved by 1916.
The advance toward comprehensive city planning that includes land use, transportation, as well as, parks in open space in Tennessee what aided not just by Kessler’s work in Memphis, but also the creation of entirely new towns in the state. While Kessler was designing the parks of Memphis, Arthur Shurchliff [1870-1957], a native of Boston and a graduate of Harvard University planned the new town of Bemis for the Bemis Bag Company. Surcliff would later earn fame as chief landscape architect for the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. In 1905 John Nolen [1869-1937], [13] prepared a General Plan for Kingsport, Tennessee. Nolen had been a professor of adult education at the University of Pennsylvania before enrolling at the age of thirty-four, in the landscape architecture program at Harvard.
In 1911, Chattanooga retained John Nolen to prepare a park and boulevard master plan for that city. That year, upon receiving his degree in landscape architecture from Harvard, Nolen prepared a plan for the partially developed Tennessee town.
In 1927, the Edwin Warner and Percy Warner parks opened in Nashville. Together their 2684 acres comprise the largest municipal park in Tennessee. The parks were planned by Bryant Fleming[14] [1877-1946].
Campus
In addition to the development of parks, cemeteries, and residential gardens, the creation of university campuses were also an important part of the evolution of landscape architecture in Tennessee. John Henry Hopkins prepared a plan for Rhodes College in [1858]. George Kessler’s master plan for Vanderbilt [1907][15] and Warren Manning’s[16] for Peabody College [1911] and Belmont [1914] in Nashville contributed to the great academic tradition of Nashville. Manning [1860-1938] was a native of Massachusetts and a member of the Olmsted firm from 1888 until he left to form his own firm in 1896. The Olmsted Brothers created plans for the University of the South at Swanee [1916] and Fisk [1929-1930] in Nashville were also significant achievements.
The Movement to State and National Parks
In 1921, Benton MacKaye [1879-1976] proposed the location of a trail that would stretch from Maine through Tennessee and into Georgia.[17] In an article in the October 1921 issue of the American Institute of Architects magazine, MacKaye proposed a trail that would stretch from Maine to the Great Smoky Mountains, Lookout Mountain and on into Georgia. That same year, a national conference on state parks was held in Tennessee. In addition to the design of City Park in New Orleans, Bogart had prepared a hand sketch in March of 1925 he prepared a hand sketch for what we now know as the Appalachian Trail. Born in Stamford, Connecticut, MacKaye lived for a time in New York City before moving a mere twenty miles from Thoreau’s Walden. His 2000 mile long trail is a hallmark of regional planning. MacKaye would help found the Regional Plan Association in 1923, and in 1932 serve as a regional planner with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Depression and the Evolution of the Rural Landscape:
MacKaye’s vision of the Appalachian Trail was timely. The crash of the stock market in October 1929 brought a new focus on Benton MacKaye’s landscape of rural America. In an effort to create employment for millions of out of work Americans, the Civilian Conservation Corp and the Works Progress Administration were formed to execute federal projects. The recently formed Tennessee State Parks and Foresty Commission utilized CCC personnel to create twelve state parks between 1934 and 1939. Big Ridge, Pickett, T.O. Fuller, Chickasaw, Norris Dam, Grundy Lakes, Montgomery Bell, Fall Creek Falls, Booker T. Washington, and Cedars of Lebanon and State Stone were all constructed by the CCC. The parks rather than following the picturesque designs of Kessler’s Overton Park plan or Manning’s Beaux Arts plan for George Peabody College were instead crafted from the rustic landscapes of the Tennessee Valley. Usually of log and heavy timber construction, buildings were evocative of early pioneer architecture. Stone gathered or quarried from the site were used extensively to complex the composition. The emphasis on rustic character even found its way to the name of the park itself such as Pickett State Rustic Park.
In addition to these marvelous state parks, the years following the stock market crash of 1929, also saw the creation of what would become America’s most visited national park, Great Smoky Mountain in 1934. Created through the efforts of John D. Rockefeller and President Franklin Roosevelt, the park boasts over 800 miles of trails. Great Smoky Mountain National Park now receives over 9.5 million visitors a year.
Two of the most significant of these new state parks, Big Ridge and Norris Dam were on Norris Reservior. The design of the town of Norris was in the charge of Earl Sumner Draper [1893-1994]. Bryant Fleming[18]
Earle Sumner Draper[19] was considered “the ablest man ever turned out” by the landscape architecture program at the University of Massachusetts. Upon graduation, Draper was employed in the office of John Nolen. After only three months in the office, Draper was sent to care for two projects, one Myers Park in Charlotte, North Carolina, the other the bulidng of the new town of Kingsport, Tennessee. In 1917, Draper moved to Charlotte becoming one of the first practicing professions in the South.
With the country in economic crisis, Draper was appointed the first planner for a new agency, the Tennessee Valley Authority.[20] The TVA was charged with navigation, flood control, reforestation, marginal lands, agriculture, and industry for an area approximately the size of Ohio. The TVA river basin runs through nine hundred miles in seven states.
From 1933 to 1941, the TVA built an efficient hydroelectric grid, including nine major lakes. It also established a new town, seven rustic parks, a “freeway” and six progressive labor camps. The project was referred to by Harvard professor Norman Newton as “the greatest single landscape architecture project on record.” To complete the work, Draper assembled a staff of sixteen to twenty other landscape architects. On of these landscape architects, Sam Brewster, became the first superintendent of Tennessee state parks.
Draper designed the construction town of Norris, Tennessee, and was instrumental in acquiring the shoreline of the TVA lakes insuring that water quality was protected and the edges remained free from development. Landscape architect Tracy Augur [1896-1974] supervised the construction of Norris. Of all of his accomplishments, he was most proud of the 21 mile long access road constructed between Norris and Knoxville. The roadway was entirely free of curb cuts along its length and the 250 foot right of way precluded encroachments into the view. Philip Rutherford Ely[21] also served on the Mississippi River Parkway Planning Commission and prepared a plan for the Pi Beta Phi Settlement School in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
Working under Earle Sumner Draper, Rubee Jeffrey Pearse [1887-1973][22] supervised park planning for the Tennessee Valley Authority. Pearse supervised six Civilian Conservation Corp camps, with a total of twelve hundred men, six superintendents, and thirty-six foremen to build a dam, two lodges, sixty-four cabins, a riding stable, and various piers and floats.
The TVA represented the culmination of landscape architects efforts in the field of planning. At the founding of the American City Planning Institute in 1917, there were two landscape architects among the founders, the largest single professional group. By the New Deal, however, landscape architects comprised almost a third of the consultants advising the forty-two State Planning Boards under the guidance of the National Planning Board.
The outbreak of World War II slowed significantly the pace of state and national park improvements in Tennessee as the nation’s attention turned to the war effort. But improvements did not come to a complete stop. Cumberland Gap National Historic Park was founded in 1940. Four years later a master plan was prepared for the Natchez Trace Parkway. As part of the effort to end the War, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory was constructed. Hubert Bond Owens [1905-1989], for forty-five years the chairman of the landscape architecture program at the University of Georgia served as landscape architect.
The Post War Years:
The years following the end of World War II saw a response to the rapidly growing population and suburbanization of the country. More often than not this design response took the form of highways. Some were quite successful others less so. Stanley William Abbott [1908-1975] had worked with Jay Downer and Gilmore Clarke in New York upon graduation from Cornell. He apparently impressed his supervisors so much that in 1933 he was appointed as the onsite representative of the firm in the creation of a 469 mile road connecting Shenandoah and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. When his supervisors withdrew from the project in 1934, Abbott provided the continuing vision that saw the project through to reality. In 1950, Abbott headed the team to prepare the plan for the proposed Mississippi River Parkway.[23]
In Nashville, Gilmore Clarke and Michael Rapuano[24] [1904-1975] prepared the Greater Loop Neighborhood Plan, the urban renewal plan for the city. They also led the Capitol Hill Redevelopment Planning effort. Landscape architects for Robert Moses, the specialty of the New York firm was highway design. Their plan proposed a tree lined boulevard along Deaderick Street which linked the symbols of city and state government and created an axial relationship between state and city governments.
Modernism and the Parks:
Through the second half of the 20th century, themes of the late 19th and early 20th century reappeared. New generations of pioneers shaped the land. A new war to end all ways, brought a third wave of development by the federal government in the Tennessee landscape.
The Mission 66 program of the National Park Service saw more contemporary approaches to landscape design within the national parks of Tennessee, as a wave of reinvestment brought design ideas no longer rooted in the rustic tradition of the CCC and WPA era. New visitor centers at Great Smoky Mountains, Fort Donelson, and Stones River explored modern design idioms and challenged the rustic image of rural Tennessee of Rocky Top and Smokey.
As they had during the days of the streetcar, commercial interests reappeared. The Rebel Railroad theme park opened in Pidgeon Forge near Gatlinburg and the Great Smokey Mountain National Park. That park would change its name in 1986 to Dollywood.
In 1975, Garrett Ekbo one of the early modernist designers in America, prepared a plan for Shelby Farms, a former penal farm near Memphis. As Nashville had done in 1897, Knoxville sought to do in 1982 inviting the world to the city with its own World’s Fair. That same year the Mud Island River Park opened in Memphis. Though neither opening to national acclaim, these projects sought to return the cities once again to the river as George Kessler had done 80 years before.

Conclusion:
Though lagging in time the development of public open spaces in the East and Midwest, the landscape architecture of Tennessee followed very similar patterns of development. The creation of rural cemeteries was followed by the development of commercial pleasure grounds and streetcar parks. In time, the World Columbian Exposition spawned other industrial fairs such as the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in Nashville and Appalachian Exposition in Knoxville as a means of expressing the progressive outlook of Tennessee cities following the Civil War. The City Beautiful movement and the City Practical views of the progressive movement, in response to such issues as the yellow fever epidemics of the late 19th century led to the creation of comprehensive parks and parkways plans in Memphis, Chattanooga, and other cities.
The federal government shaped the state’s landscape in other ways. The first federal presence in the Tennessee landscape is found in national military parks and cemeteries. The Appalachian Trail brought visitors from around the country to see the Great Smokey Mountains. The Depression brought further federal action as the Tennessee Valley Authority sought to provide rural electrification to the state while at the same time developing recreation lands along the lake shores and other water bodies created as part of that effort.
Slowly but surely the historic landscape designed which followed the Civil War the the rustic landscapes of the CCC and WPA era are giving way to more modernist expressions. The Mission 66 initiative of the National Park Service brought more contemporary expression to the rural Tennessee landscape. Garrett Eckbo’s work at Shelby Farms in Memphis accelerate that trend. Another Exposition in Knoxville in 1982 brought further advances. The reinvention of the Chattanooga riverfront is another important act. The recent competition for the design of Shelby Farms, won by Field Operations of Philadelphia, offers yet another glimpse of the future of Tennessee landscape architecture.
The University of Tennessee , accepted its first class of students in the graduate program in landscape architecture in 2008, the first program in the state. These shapers of the public landscape of Tennessee are pioneers of a new era. They now build upon a grand tradition of landscape design in this state which must be studied, criticized, preserved, and honored. There is much to be done.

[1] Brandau, Roberta Seawell, ed., History of Homes and Gardens of Tennessee, Nashville: The Garden Study Club of Nashville, 1964.
[2] Hopkin, John Lynn, “Overton Park: the Evolution of a Public Space,” June 1, 1987, a paper prepared for Ritchie Smith and Associates. Memphis.
[3] Johnson, Leland R., The Parks of Nashville, Nashville: Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County Board of Park and Recreation, 1986, p. 38.
[4] Ibid.
[5]
[6] Birnbaum, Charles and Foell, Stephanie S., Ed. Shaping the American Landscape, “Harold Ap Rhys Caparn”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009, p. 47-49.
[7] Birnbaum, Charles and Foell, Stephanie S., Ed. Shaping the American Landscape, “John Bogart”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009, p. 28-32.
[8] Birnbaum, Charles and Foell, Stephanie S., Ed. Shaping the American Landscape, “Julius Pitzman”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009, p. 272-274.

[9] Johnson, The Parks of Nashville, p. 81.
[10] Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “George Edwin Waring, Jr.”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 424-427.
[11] Culbertson, Kurt, Landscape Architect of the American Renaissance: The Life and Work of George Edward Kessler,
[12] Rushing, Wanda, Memphis and the Paradox of Place: Globalization in the American South, The University of North Carolina Press, 2009, p. 39-40.
[13] Nolen, John, General Features of a Park System of Chattanooga, Boston: George S. Ellis and Company, 1911, see also Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “John Nolen”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 264-269.
[14] Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “Bryant Fleming”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 121-123.
[15] McGaw, Robert A. The Vanderbilt Campus, A Pictorial History, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1978, p. 60-61.
[16] The Papers of Warran Manning [1882-1998],Iowa State University Library, Series 2. See also Manning Collection, List of Clients, the University of Massachusetts, Lowell Center for Lowell History.
[17] MacKaye, Benton, “Suggested Location of Appalachian Trail,” Journal of the American Institute of Architects, October, 1921. See also, Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “Bryant Fleming”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 233-236.
[18] Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “Bryant Fleming”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 121-123.
[19] Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “Earle Sumner Draper”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 100-101.
[20] Carr, Ethan, Wilderness by Design: Landscape Architecture and the National Park Service, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, p. 252, 279. See also, Cutler, Phoebe, The Public Landscape of the New Deal, New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 133-144.
[21] Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “Philip Rutherford Ely”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 113-115.
[22] Birnbaum, Charles and Foell, Stephanie S., Ed. Shaping the American Landscape, “Rubee Jeffrey Pearse”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009, p. 254-257.

[23] Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “Stanley William Abbott”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 1-3.
[24] Birnbaum, Charles and Karson, Robin, Ed. Pioneers of American Landscape Design, “Michael Rapuano”, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000, p. 308-311.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE HISTORY OF TENNESSEE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

2009-11-28T11:58:00.001-07:00

CHRONOLOGY OF THE TENNESSEE DESIGNED LANDSCAPE: ©By Kurt Culbertson 2009.
1794 University of Tennessee Founded in Knoxville.
1802 Cragfront in Castalian Springs.
1813 Oatlands Plantation in Murfreesboro.
1816 James K. Polk Home in Columbia.
1819 Rachel’s Garden at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage by William Frost
1822 City Cemetery Nashville.
1848 Rhodes College Founded in Memphis.
1850 Bickford Park – Memphis.
1852 Elmwood Cemetery – Memphis established. (national register property).
1852 Belmont Mansion and Gardens by August Heinman
1855 Old Grey Cemetery – Knoxville established.
1856 Mount Olivet Cemetery Nashville.
1867 Fort Donelson near Dover and Stones River National Cemeteries established.
1868-1874 Central Park – Memphis.
1869 Mount Ararat Cemetery Nashville.
1870 Watkins Park – Nashville established.
1871-1877 Tennessee State Capitol Grounds, Nashville, by John Bogart
1875 Railroad or Central Park in Union City established.
1884 Nashville West Side Park Race Track by Julius Pitzman (now part of Centennial Park)
1885 Spring Park, Nashville’s first “streetcar” park established.
1887-late 1920s East End Park, a “streetcar” park operated in Memphis.
1888 Woodstock Park later Glendale Park, a “streetcar” park established in Nashville.
Glendale Park – Nashville established.
1888 Greenwood Cemetery Nashville.
1889 Cherokee Park, Nashville’s third “streetcar” park established.
1890 Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park established (national register property)
1891 St. Cloud Hills Subdivision Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.
1890 Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park established (national register property)
1894 Shiloh National Military Park established (national register property).
1897 Nashville Centennial Grounds (Anetheum) , W. F. Josolyne, landscape architect.
1899 Church Park established in Memphis.
1899 Gifford Pinchot and Carl Schenck consult on the University of the South forests.
1900 Memphis Park Board established.
1900 Memphis Park System Master Plan by George Kessler
Overton Park
Forrest Park
Confederate Park
Riverside Park
1900-1905 Master Plan for Bemis, Tennessee by Arthur Shurcliff.
1901 Nashville park board established.
1901 Belle Meade Country Club opened with course designed by Donald Ross.
1901 Upper Montclair Country Club designed by
1903 Grounds of the National Soldier’s Home, Johnson City, Tennessee, by Harold Caparn and Carl Anderson
1905 Jackson Station Grounds by George Kessler
1905 Lancaster Park in Jackson opens (design perhaps by George Kessler).
1905 D. P. Montague Residence Chattanooga
1905 General Plan for Kingsport, Tennessee by John Nolen.
1905 Kessler Plan for Vanderbilt University
1905 Memphis Country Club formed (course was redesigned by Donald Ross in 1917)
1906 Thomas J. Felder Residence Nashville by Olmsted Brothers
1907 Cherokee Country Club of Knoxville by Donald Ross
1907-1908 Fairyland Park Memphis opens. It is later destroyed by fire.
1909 University of Memphis founded in Memphis as West Tennessee State University.
1909 Laitenberger’s Beer Garden is purchased to form Morgan’s Park in Nashville
1910 Appallachian Exposition in Chillowee Park in Knoxville.
1911 Park and Boulevard Plan for Chattanooga, Tennessee by John Nolen
1911 Middle Tennessee State University founded in Murfreesburo.
1911 East Tennessee State University founded in Johnson City.
1911-1912 Tennessee State Fairgrounds in Nashville by Warren Manning [1860-1938].

1911-1912 George Peabody School for Teachers in Nashville by Warren Manning.

1912 Hadley Park – Nashville established.
1912 Tennessee State University established.
1913-1914 Douglass Park – Memphis’ first public park for blacks established.
1914 Belmont College campus plan in Nashville by Warren Manning.

1914 Private Estates for William M. Lesley in Chattanooga by Warren Manning.
1914 Tennessee Golf Association formed at Memphis Country Club.
1914 Athletic Fields and Playground at Southern Pacific Railyards in Memphis by George Kessler
1914-1919 World War I is fought is Europe.
1915-1917 Lincoln Memorial University campus plan in Harrogate by Warren Manning.

1916-1922 University of the South Campus Plan in Swanee by Olmsted Brothers.

1918 Signal Mountain Golf Course

1919 Johnson City Country Club by A. W. Tillinghast

1921 National State Parks Convention held in Tennessee.

1921 Appalachian Trail Concept by Benton MacKaye.
1922 Chattanooga Golf and Country Club by Donald Ross
1922-1923 Real Estate Subdivision for Bruce I Crabtree Chattanooga by Warren Manning.
1923 A. F. Sanford Residence Knoxville by Olmsted Brothers.
1923-1927 Roland W. Olmsted Residence by Olmsted Brothers.
1924 Fairyland Subdivision, Lookout Mountain 1924 Chattanooga by Warren Manning.
1924 A. F. Sanford’ Boxwood” in Knoxville by Olmsted Brothers.
1924 Harland Bartholemew Plan for Memphis.
1924-1925 Private Estates for Robert J. MacLellan in Chattanooga by Warren Manning.

1925 Tennessee State Parks and Forestry Commission Established.

1925 Private Estates for Mrs. Henry Overton Ewing, Lookout Mountain TN by Warren Manning.

1925 Private Estates for the Honorable Newell Sanders in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1925 Town of Lookout Mountain parks & parkways plan by Warren Manning.

1925 Parks and Parkways Planning for the Lookout Mountain Garden Club by Warren Manning.

1925 Lookout Mountain Park by Olmsted Brothers (also 1928-1929).

1925-1928 Herbert Farrell Residence Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.

1926 Harland Bartholemew hired as Nashville park planner.

1926 Carrier Hall, the residence of Robert M. Carrier, 642 S. Willett in Memphis by Bryant Fleming.

1926 City & town planning for Eleventh Street Realty Company Chattanooga by Warren Manning.

1926 Real Estate Subdivision for Eleventh Street Realty Company Chattanooga by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. E. Y. Chapin in Signal Mountain by Warren Manning.
1926 Private Estates for Alfred H. Thatcher in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. W. B. Miller in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Private Estates for Morris E. Temple in Lookout Mountain TN by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. Richard Thatcher in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. W. J. Dodge in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. Will O. Martin in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. Dyer Butterfield in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. S. Brunswick Lowe, S. Brunswick in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.
1926 Small Home Grounds for Henry King in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for T. Walter Fred in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Small Home Grounds for Mrs. C. M. Willingham in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1926 Hunt Club in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning

1926 Brainerd Country Club of Chattanooga by Donald Ross

1927 Holston Hills Golf and Country Club of Knoxville by Donald Ross

Ridgefield Country Club of Kingsport by Donald Ross

1927 Hugh Sanford Residence Knoxville by Olmsted Brothers

1927 Edwin Warner and Percy Warner Parks open in Nashville.

1927-1928 Cherokee Park Subdivision in Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.
1927-1955 Kingsport Cemetery by Olmsted Brothers.
1928 McCallie School Chattanooga school grounds by Warren Manning.

1928 Arthur Allen Residence in Nashville by Bryant Fleming.

1928 “Rostrevor” for W. C. Rosses, Knoxville.
1928 Guilford Dudley Residence in Nashville by Bryant Fleming.
1929 The United States Stock Market crashes in 1929.
1929 George Schwab Residence, Harding Road, Nashville by Bryant Fleming.
1929 Subdivision for Lookout Mountain Holding Company in Lookout Mountain by Warren Manning.

1929-1930 Fisk University Campus Plan Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.

1929-1932 Cheekwood by Bryant Fleming [1877-1946].
1930 “Watersmeet” for C. Runcie Clements in Nashville by Bryant Fleming.
c. 1930 “Brookhill”, home of Mrs. Ralph Owen in Nashville by Bryant Fleming.
c. 1930 Warner Parks by Bryant Fleming.
1931-1932 Mr. King and Mrs. Leroy Residence in Memphis by Bryant Fleming.
1931 Mr. T.J. Tyne, Jr. Residence in Nashville by Bryant Fleming.
1932 Frieda Carter’s Rock City Gardens open in Lookout Mountain.
1933 Earle Sumner Draper Plan for Norris, Tennessee
1933-1937 Woodmont Estates Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.
1934 American Association of Foresters meet in Knoxville.
1934 Big Ridge State Park developed by CCC.
1934 Great Smokey National Park established.
1934-1935 Tennessee Valley Authority Commercial and Industrial Buildings by Olmsted Brothers
1924-1942 Pickett State Rustic Park constructed by WPA (national register property).
1933 T.O. Fuller State Park established and developer in 1939 by CCC.
1934-1936 Rubee Jeffrey Pearse supervises park planning for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
1934 Norris to Nashville Parkway by Earle Sumner Draper
1934 Chickasaw State Park developed by the CCC.
1934 Norris Dam State Park developed by the CCC.
1935 Blue Ridge Parkway begins construction.
1935 Grundy Lakes State Park developed by the CCC.
1935 Montgomery Bell State Park developed by the CCC.
1936 Fall Creek Falls State Park developed by the CCC.
1937 Booker T. Washington State Park developed by the CCC.
1937 Cedar of Lebanon State Park developed by the CCC.
1937 Dixie Homes and Lauderdale Courts, public housing projects in Memphis. John F. Highberger, landscape architect.
1938 National Conference on State Parks held in Norris.
1938-1942 State Stone State Rustic Park constructed by WPA (national register property).
1938-1939 Laurel Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Great Smokey Mountain Gatlinburg by Olmsted Brothers.
1939 Ridgefield Farms in Kingsport by Olmsted Brothers.
1939 Riverview Park established in Chattanooga.
1939 Natchez Trace State Park established by CCC.
1939 Margaret and Hugo Dixon Garden (now the Dixon Gallery) by Hope Crutchfield in Memphis.
1939-1945
1940 Cumberland Gap National Historic Park established.
1944 Natchez Trace Parkway Master Plan.
1945 Oak Ridge National Laboratory established. Hubert Owens landscape architect.
1947 E.G. Hunter Residence Kingsport by Olmsted Brothers.
1948-1954 Philip Kerrigan, Jr. Residence Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.
1949-1952 Dennis Burial Plot in Kingsport by Olmsted Brothers.
1950 Mississippi River Parkway by Stanley William Abbott and the National Park Service
1950 Securities Company Commercial Buildings Kingsport by Olmsted Brothers.
1951-1955 Green Acres Shopping Center in Kingsport by Olmsted Brothers.
1953 Audubon Park established in Memphis.
1954 Links Hill Country Club in Greenville, Tennessee designed by Robert Trent Jones, Sr.
1956 Tennessee Gardens are featured in Treasury of American Gardens by James. M. Fitch and F. F. Rockwell including the Memphis residence of Mr. and Mrs. Vance Norfleet by Ewald Associates, “Wildings” the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Howe, and the Nashville residence of Mrs. George Weeks Hale.
1955 Harland Bartholemew Plan for Public Buildings in Memphis.
1956 Reflection Riding Arboretum and Botanical Garden created in Chattanooga by John and Margaret Chambliss.
1956-1957 Andrew Johnson National Historic Site Mission 66 Visitors Center Addition in Greeneville.
1957 W. C. Paul Arboretum established in Memphis by George Madlinger, landscape architect.
1957-1958 Great Smokey Mountains National Park Mission 66 Visitors Center
1958-1968 Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg by Olmsted Brothers.
1959 Memphis Civic Center Plaza Plan, Walter A. J. Ewald was landscape architect on the team.
1960-1962 Fort Donelson National Battlefield Mission 66 Visitors Center
1960-1963 Stones River National Battlefield Mission 66 Visitors Center
1961 Rebel Railroad Theme Park opens in Pidgeon Forge (the future Dollywood)
1963 General Loop Neighborhood Plan by Clarke and Rapuano in Nashville.
c. 1965 Meditation Garden by Bernard Grenardier opens at Graceland.
1971 Gardens of William P. Hager of Memphis featured in Gardens of The American South by John Wedda including the J.S. Buxton and J. L. Kirkpatrick Residences.
1975 Shelby Farms Land Use Plan by Garrett Eckbo.
1982 Knoxville World’s Fair
1982 Mud Island River Park opens in Memphis.
1982 Master Plan for Reflection Riding by Thomas Kane.
1985 Japanese Garden in Audubon Park created in Memphis by Koichi Kawana.
1986 Mousetail Landing State Park created.
1986 Dollywood opens in Pidgeon Forge.
1992 Russell A. Adsit named an ASLA Fellow.
1992 David O. Lose named an ASLA Fellow.
1997 Tennessee Parks and Greenway Foundation established.
2001 Knoxville Botanical Garden and Arboretum is formed on the grounds of the 1786 nurseries of Joe B. and C. B. Howell.
2002 Metropolitan Parks Plan for Memphis by WRT and Hawkins Partners.
2002 Jack Daniels Village Square BBQ Pavilion and Mulberry Creek Crossing in Lynchburg by Carol R. Johnson and Associates
2003 Memphis Waterfront Master Plan by Cooper, Robertson and Partners.
2003 University of the South Dining Hall and Central Area in Sawannee by Carol R. Johnson and Associates.
2003 National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis by SWA Group.
2004 Rhodes College Paul Barrett, Jr. Library and Palmer Quad in Memphis by Carol R. Johnson and Associates.
2005 Church Street and Capitol Boulevard Reconstruction in Nashville by Carol R. Johnson and Associates.
2006 Heritage Center Meadow Restoration, Oak Ridge National Laboratories by Carol R. Johnson and Associates.
2007 East Tennessee State University Summers-Taylor Soccer Stadium in Johnson City by Carol R. Johnson and Associates.
2008 Knoxville South Waterfront Public Improvements by Carol R. Johnson and Associates.
2009 Shelby Farms Memphis by Field Operations.
n.d. Memphis Chamber of Commerce City Plan by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Chattanooga City Plan and Parks by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Peabody College in Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Franklin Pike (the Estate of James C. Bradford) in Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. R.R. Strong Residence Knoxville by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Knoxville Board of Commerce City Improvements by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. E. R. Reynolds Estate in Bristol by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Miscellaneous Projects for Wilkinson and Wilkinson in Knoxville.
n.d. Briant J. Shwab Residence in Nashville by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Great Smoky Mountains National Park Gatlinburg by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Fairyland Subdivision in Chatanooga by Olmsted Brothers.
n.d. Dan Kiley consults on Vanderbilt Campus Plan
n.d. Knoxville Museum Vision Plan and Garden by Sasaki Associates
n.d. Chattanooga Waterfront Plan by Hargreaves Associates and Hawkins Partners.
n.d. Nashville Waterfront Plan by Hargreaves Associates and Hawkins Partners.
n.d. Vanderbilt University Master Plan by Sasaki Associates.

The Houston Bliss Collection of Garden Plans By Arthur and Marie Berger

2009-07-10T20:59:00.000-07:00

THE COLLECTION OF HOUSTON BLISS: GARDEN PLANS BY ARTHUR AND MARIE BERGER
Compiled by Kurt Culbertson 1978 from a collection of drawings in the possession of Houston Bliss. While working as a landscape architect for the City of Dallas in 1978 I learned of the work of Arthur and Marie Berger. I had the opportunity to meet their former co-worker, Houston Bliss, who allowed me to view his collection of plans from the firm. The following is a summation of my notes from that review. Following Mr. Bliss’ death some years later I spoke with her widow, who stated that the collection was apparently destroyed following Mr. Bliss’ death. Some drawings listed only Arthur, others as Arthur and Marie, some as Marie and Arthur. It is not known if the order of the couples names conveys the primary designer. Few of the drawings were dated. Unless otherwise indicated all projects are residential gardens. In most cases only the city was given as a location.

Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth B. Absher San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Carl J. Aldenhoven Fort Worth, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Ames San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Amis, Jr. Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. R. B. Anderson Vernon, Texas
The Argyle Patterson Avenue and Argyle
San Antonio, Texas Nov. 15, 1958
Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Armstrong Cornell
Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Arneson San Antonio, Texas
General and Mrs. Milton Arnold Washington, D. C. Georgetown
Mr. and Mrs. J. F. Stuart Arthur Dallas, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Martin Ashburng 7109 Del Rose (?)
Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Emmons R. Bahan Weatherford, Texas near Weatherford
Mr. and Mrs. Travis D. Bailey San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Bakke Paseo Encinal August, 1959
San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Harry Bass Dallas, Texas
E. A. Basse, Jr. San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Bearden Amherst
Dallas, Texas
Harold C. Beasley Alta Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas
Henry Beck, Jr. Dallas, Texas On lake
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Beckett Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. W.P. Bentley Dallas, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
Alternate Plan W. P. Bentley Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. I.B. Beren Dallas, Texas On a creek
Berger Residence Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Berger Fort Worth, Texas
Willard M. Berman San Antonio, Texas
Kenyon Bevan Baxtershire Drive
Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Birnie Dallas, Texas
Ben L. Bird Fort Worth, Texas
Mrs. J.L. Bivins Amarillo, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Waller Boedeker Gaywood Road/Walnut Hill Lane
Dallas, Texas
Roland S. Bond Dallas, Texas On a stream
Mr. and Mrs. Harry E. Brants Fort Worth, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. J.E. (Jake) Anderson Waggonner Drive
Dallas, Texas
Dr. and Mrs. William F. Brown Dallas, Texas
C. L. Browning San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Bryant San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. John Burns Fort Worth, Texas
Burr Oak Addition Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Marie and Arthur Berger Planting Strip
N.E. 50th and N. Kelley Ave.
Mrs. S. F. Cade Dallas, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
C. W. Cahoon, Jr. Fillmore, Wichita Falls, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Calvert San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Alex Camp Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Mark Campbell Olney, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Canning (2) Fort Worth, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Carter San Antonio, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Castlebury Vernon, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Dr. and Mrs. J.O. Chambers Fort Worth, Texas
Dr. and Mrs. John Chapman Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Clark ?
The Plot of William H. Clark Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Dr. and Mrs. Kemp Clarke Highland Park, Texas
E. W. Clemens San Antonio, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
Mr. and Mrs. R. E. Clements Amarillo, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. R. C. Cline Amarillo, Texas July 1960
Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Closuit Fort Worth, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
Coastal Refineries ?
Mr. and Mrs. George Hunter Coates San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Cochran Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Rosser J. Coke Dallas, Texas
Dr. and Mrs. Bailey Collins Wichita Falls, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. James Mitchell Collins Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Worthen Collins Dallas, Texas
Columbian Country Club Dallas, Texas (on lake) Max Sandfield, Architect, April 7, 1955
Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Comegys Shreveport, Louisiana
Mr. and Mrs. Leo Corrigan, Jr. Dallas, Texas
Mrs. Grace Cozby McAllen, Texas August, 1957
Mr. and Mrs. Earle M. Craig, Jr. Midland, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. John Crichton Shreveport, Louisiana Earl Hart Miller, Consultant August 18, 1958
Jerome K. Crossman Dallas, Texas
Trammel Crow Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Coursey Dallas, Texas
Dallas Country Club Dallas, Texas
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts Dallas, Texas
Dallas Power and Light Dallas, Texas
Commerce St. Entrance
White Rock Substation
N.E. Service Center Greenville Avenue
Dallas Public Library
Mrs. Daniel/Mr. Mallon Farmers Branch, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger On a lake
DeGolyer and McNaughlin
Daniels Street Office Building Dallas Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. J. Philip David Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger Feb. 15, 1960
Mr. and Mrs. Wirt Davis II Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
E. M. Dealey Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Ben DeChard, Jr. Dallas, Texas
The Decorative Center Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger May 1956
Mr. and Mrs. E. L. DeGolyer Dallas, Texas
E. L. DeGolyer, Jr. Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Dean Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Dewar San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. A. R. Dillard, Jr. Wichita Falls, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Dougherty Beeville, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Dr. Pepper Corp. Hdqr. Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. E. C. Dwelle Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. B. P. Edelman Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Garland Ellis 4425 E. Lancaster Marie and Arthur Berger
Fort Worth, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Henry English
Mrs. Kay Edmund San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Henry English Dallas, Texas
Mrs. Mildred English San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Dr. and Mrs. M.W. Everhart San Angelo, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Exchange Park
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph E. Fair Boedne, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Nelson A. Farry Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. J. G. Ferguson San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. D. C. Fitch Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
1st Federal Savings and Loan Tyler, Texas Marie Berger/Houston Bliss
1st Presbyterian Church San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Fitzhugh Dallas, Texas Marie Berger/Houston Bliss
Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Fitzsimons San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Flower Show/Fort Worth Garden Club Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Foxworth Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Walter Foxworth Dallas, Texas
Dr. and Mrs. E. J. Foscue 3225 Hanover Marie and Arthur Berger
Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Francis Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Emanuel Franzel San Antonio, Texas Marie Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Norman Freeman Dallas, Texas
Frenchman’s Cove, Ltd. Jamaica Near Port Antonio
15 & 19 & Great House William Tamminga, Architect, Houston
Houses 1-9 Jan. 1960
Mr. and Mrs. C.E. Fulgham Lubbock, Texas
The Gallagher Ranch San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Galt Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Garden and Demonstration Garden San Antonio, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Garth Briar Hollow Lane Marie and Arthur Berger
Houston, Texas
Dr. and Mrs. M. R. Garrison Berkeley Avenue and Buena Vista Way
Wichita Falls, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Monte R. Garrison Wichita Falls, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
General Electric Tyler, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. M.H. Gertz Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Grayson Gill Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Marcus Ginsburg Fort Worth, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Sol Goodell Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Tom G. Gouger San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mrs. Marguerite Green Dallas, Texas Arthur and Marie Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Greenberg Avondale Marie and Arthur Berger
Oklahoma City, OK
Jack Greenman Fort Worth, Texas June 9, 1954
Mr. and Mrs. Erle P. Grossman San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
W. F. Guerriero
Hackberry Creek Park Highland Park, Texas
Drexel, Beverly to Bryan
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Haas Corpus Christi, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. P.E. Haggerty Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger June-Oct.1957
Jack F. Hall Sherman, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Gaston Hallam Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Dr. and Mrs. Salmon Halpern Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. C. S. Hamilton Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. J. Hanson Fort Worth, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. John Harris Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. K.D. Harrison San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. W. W. Harvey Fort Worth, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Henderson Van Court, Texas Leonard Mauldin, San Angelo
W. B. Henley, Jr. Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. L.B. Henry Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. E. S. Heyser
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson Higginbotham Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Roger Hill Alameda Drive/ Marie and Arthur Berger
Wildwood Drive West
San Antonio, Texas
General and Mrs. Maurice Hirsch Houston, Texas
Colonel and Mrs. F. C. Hixon San Antonio, Texas Feb. 25, 1952
114 Mt. Erin Pass/ San Antonio, Texas Ford and Roger, Architects
Route 7 Willow Way
Mr. and Mrs. Leland A. Hodges Fort Worth, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. S. G. Hootkins Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mrs. Reagan Houston San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Houston Technical Laboratories Houston, Texas Interior Garden July 1956
Mr. and Mrs. Ray Hubbard Dallas, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. Harold W. Hudson San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger Oct. 24, 1958
Ashford Hughes Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Chester Hunter Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Huntress, Jr. San Antonio, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Inge Dallas, Texas Marie and Arthur Berger
The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Karcher Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Lakeside Drive Highland Park, Texas
(Armstrong to Footbridge)
Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Lupton Fort Worth, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Harris Melasky Taylor, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. H.D. McEwen Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger On Lake
Mr. and Mrs. T. F. Murchison San Antonio, Texas
Mrs. Robert Nicholson Home Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. J. F. O’Donohoe Wichita Falls, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. J.F. Odonohoe Wichita Falls, Texas Arthur Berger January 1950
Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Omohundro Wichita Falls, Texas Arthur Berger
The Dr. Pepper Company Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Dr. and Mrs. J. F. Prichard Fort Worth, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Sawnie Robertson Dallas, Texas
Messrs. John Sanders and Alex Clayton Dallas, Texas
Col. And Mrs. R. G. Storey Dallas, Texas Arthur Berger
Mr. and Mrs. Val Tanner Ardmore, Oklahoma Arthur Berger
Texas Children’s Home Fort Worth, Texas
Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Wise, Jr. Fort Worth, Texas Arthur Berger

Photos of Gardens Designed By Arthur and Marie Berger in the Maynard Parker Collection of the Huntington Library, California

2009-07-10T15:52:00.001-07:00

PHOTOS OF GARDENS BY ARTHUR AND MARIE BERGER IN THE MAYNARD L. PARKER COLLECTION, THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY Compiled by Kurt Culbertson July 2009
Bakke Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1959
Beck Residence Dallas, Texas May 1959
Beckett Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
Arthur and Marie Berger Garden Dallas, Texas Undated
Mr. and Mrs. Trammell Crow Residence Dallas, Texas May 1955
DeGolyar Garden Unknown Undated
A.C. Deutsch Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
Dewar Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
Mildred English Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
Fair Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
Patrick S. Haggerty Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
Hanson Residence Fort Worth, Texas May 1959
Hunter Residence Dallas, Texas May 1955
Eddie Kahn Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
Wally Lee Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
Lemmon Residence Dallas, Texas May 1959
Luther Residence Fort Worth, Texas May 1959
Matthews Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
McElvaney Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
McEwan Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
McFadden Residence Dallas, Texas May 1955
McNaughton Residence Dallas, Texas 1950s
O’Neill Residence Midland, Texas June 1956
Pace Setter House of 1955 Dallas, Texas October 1954
Penson Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
Roberts Residence Fort Worth, Texas May 1959

Max Sandfield Residence Dallas, Texas June 1956
Sanford Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
A. A. Seeligson Residence Olmos Park, Texas May 1955
Abbe M. Strunk Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
Thompson Residence Dallas, Texas May 1959
Unidentified Gardens Unknown undated.
Unidentified Dallas, Texas June 1956
Untitled Residence San Antonio, Texas May 1955
Charles F. Urschel Residence Olmos Park, Texas May 1955
(Magnolia Hill)
Webb Residence Dallas, Texas May 1959

2009-01-01T17:12:00.000-07:00

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN:William Edward Vortriede (1861-1940). By Kurt Culbertson ©2009
William Vortriede was born in Germany, October 24, 1861, a son of Edward and Paulina (Berger) Vortriede. Mr. Vortriede received his education in the schools of Germany and at an early age decided to take up gardening as a trade.[1] In 1886, Vortriede, immigrated to the United States and went direct to Toledo, Ohio, where he worked for his uncle for four years.[2] Vortriede then came to San Diego where he worked for Coronado Beach for four years.[3] From San Diego, Vortriede moved to Stockton, where he was employed at the state hospital for thirteen years.[4] In 1895 he was married to Christina Jergensen.[5] The couple had two children Paulina and Edward.
In June 1904, Vortriede was put in charge of the school grounds of Stockton.[6] He later spent four years as landscape gardener for George West & Sons and then two years for Dr. Samuel Langdon orchard operation.[7] During this period of time Vortriede wrote of the revival of the geometric style of landscape gardening.[8] In 1911 he was made state gardener at the capitol grounds in Sacramento.[9] The site under Vortriede’s care was thirty acres in size.[10] In this position, Vortriede wrote on the importance of roadway trees.[11] In 1915, Vortriede offered to design the grounds of all state academic institutions. The first of these was the Los Angeles Normal School.[12] It is not know how long Vortriede remained as state gardener but he was apparently still in this position through 1930.[13] Vortriede died in Sacramento on May 28, 1940.[14]
Vortriede was a Republican. His hobby is the study and cultivation of plants and flowers." Vortriede’s spineflower, Systenotheca vortriedei, collected in the San Lucia Mountains, is named for him. [15]

[1] Reed, Walter G., History of Sacramento, California, Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1923, p. 732.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Sacramento Biographies, William Vortriede,
[4] Ibid.
[5] 1900 United States Census of Stockton California, e.d. 115, p. 8.
[6] http://www.stocktongov.com/history/pic2801.cfm
[7] 1910 United States Census of Merce, California, e.d. 100, p. 14A.
[8] “The Revival of Geometric Landscape Gardening,” Park and Cemetery and Landscape Gardening, Chicago, Vol. XII, No. 9, November 1902.
[9] Roster of State, County, and City Officials, Sacramento, 1913, p. 17.
[10] “Expert Advice,” Western Journal of Education, San Francisco, November 1914, Vol. XX, No. 11, p. 17.
[11] “Roadside Trees, The Monthly Bulletin, California Commission of Horticulture, Oct. 1912, Vol. 1, No. 11, p. 852-855
[12] “Vortreide to Plan Grounds” Sacramento Bee, April 12, 1915, p. 5.
[13] Storer, Tracy I., “Range Extensions by the Western Robin in California,” The Condor, November 1926, Vol. XXVIII, p. 264., see also 1930 United States Census of Sacramento, ed. 34-71, p. 12A.
[14] California Death Index 1940-1997.
[15] Eastwood, Alice, “Some Alpine Castillejos of the High Sierra of California,” The American Midland Naturalist, University of Notre Dame, 1943.

2008-12-28T21:53:00.001-07:00

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN: Otto Holmdahl (1883-1967)
By Kurt Culbertson, © 2008

Otto Emil Holmdahl (1883-1967) was born on June 1, 1883 in Falkenberg, Sweden.[1] He studied both naval architecture and landscape design at Chalmers University in Göteborg. On October 15, 1907, Holmdahl arrived in Vancouver, British Columbia aboard the ship Chippowa, settling in Seattle.[2] In emigration papers from Vancouver listed Holmdahl as a ship builder.[3]

In 1918, he registered to serve in the United States military during World War I.[4] At the time he was gardener to William Howarth at 3330 Grand in Everett, Washington.[5]

On August 7, 1919, he became a naturalized United States citizen.[6] Holmdahl traveled back to Sweden on numerous occasions. August 30, 1923, about the Neuiw Amsterdam from Southhampton after a trip to Sweden.[7] August 15, 1926 from Southhampton aboard the Caronia. [8] September 1, 1929, from Göteborg, aboard the Kungsholm.[9] On September 6, 1930, Holmdahl arrived in New York aboard the Drottningholm from Göteborg, Sweden.[10]

As one of the first landscape architects practicing in the region, Holmdahl was an early advocate of the use of native plant materials and found inspiration in the ecology of the region. Around 1925, he laid out the grounds for James Garfield Eddy home on Lake Washington in Medina. [11] The Eddy estate was entered on the National Register in 1980. A garden for Dr. M.C. Lyle on Puget Sound was developed in 1928.[12] In 1930 Holmdahl completed the design of the Robert P. Greer garden in Seattle.[13] That same year he designed the garden of Lawrence Colman at 9343 Fauntleroy Way in the Fauntleroy neighborhood in Seattle.[14] He also designed the grounds of the William Boeing, Jr. home.
The rockery at the south entry of the Seattle Arboretum at Arboretum Drive and Lake Washington Boulevard was apparently designed by Holmdahl around 1938.[15] In 1954, Holmdahl consulted on the grounds of Prentice Bloedel on Bainbridge Island. Thomas Church, Richard Haag, Noble Hoggson, and Fujitaro Kubota also contributed to the garden, now known as the Bloedel Reserve.[16] For Elizabeth Ayer’s new home at 47 The Highlands in Seattle, Holmdahl designed a garden in 1956. He may have designed the cast concrete rockery of the Davis Residence in Crescent Beach in Normandy Park.[17]Holmdahls’ work became synonymous with the great estates of the “gold coast” of Lake Washington, many of these with Arthur L. Loveless (1873-1971).[18] Holmdahl also apparently designed the courtyard of Loveless’ studio building.[19]

Holmdahl was one of 26 landscape architects who met in January 25, 1946 to form the Washington Society of landscape architects. He was identified at this meeting as the nursery liason representative of the group.[20]

In 1930 Holmdahl and his Andrey were living in Seattle.[21] Holmdahl designed the grounds of the Washington State Library in Olympia (1954-1959) and Aberdeen Community Hospital in Aberdeen in 1959. On December 20, 1957, he was named to the Municipal Arts Commission of Seattle.[22] With architect Paul Thiry, he served as landscape architect for the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962.[23] That year, Holmdahl was a judge of the Seattle Rhododendron Society.[24] During the course of his career, Otto designed parks in Bremerton, Ellensburg, Aberdeen, and other cities in Washington and Oregon. His work is also seen in Washington Park in Seattle. Holmdahl died in Seattle on March 2, 1967.[25]
[1] Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S. 1895-1956.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.
[5] Ibid.
[6] U.S. Naturalization Records, 1795-1972.
[7] New york Passenger Lists, 1820-1957.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=1059 , see also http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/wa/King/state2.html , see also “Born of Trees: A Timberman’s Estate is Revived To Reflect Its Colonial Bones,” Seattle Times, November 3, 2002.
[12] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920719&slug=1502851 , see also “Georgian Colonial: This Classic Design Fits A Contemporary Family, Seattle Times, July 18, 1992.
[13] http://web1.seattle.gov/dpd/historicalsite/QueryResult.aspx?ID=-1705086475 , http://siris-archives.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?uri=full=3100001~!239209!0#focus , see also “A Seattle Garden on the Estate of Mrs. Robert P. Greer,” House and Garden, December 1936.
[14] http://fauntleroy.net/newsletters/nlwinter08.pdf
[15] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030829&slug=pacific-pnwl31
[16] https://digital.lib.washington.edu/php/architect/record.phtml?type=structure&structureid=3318
[17] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030829&slug=pacific-pnwl31
[18] Oschner, Jeffrey Karl, ed., Shaping Seattle Architecture, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.
[19] “Bone of Tree”, Seattle Times, Nov. 3, 2002.
[20] http://www.wasla.org/whatisla.htm
[21] 1930 United States Census of Seattle, Washington, E.D. 17-91, p. 25B.
[22] “Art Commission Member Named,” Seattle Times, December 20, 1957.
[23] The Weeders Guide, The Palladium Times, Oswego, New York, July 23, 1962.
[24] http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JARS/v16n4/v16n4-seattleshow.htm
[25] “Otto Holmdahl, Landscaper,” Seattle Times, March 5, 1967.

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN: Johannes Reimers [1856-1953]

2008-12-14T21:21:00.001-07:00

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE DESIGN, VOLUME III:
Johannes Reimers, landscape gardener and artist (1856-1953)
By Kurt Culbertson 2008

Johannes Reimers was born in Norway on Dec. 31, 1856.[1] Reimers immigrated in 1885.He appears to have settled in California when quite young. He was an established painter and pastelist[2] at the time of his wedding in Oakland in 1883. Born in Bergen, Norway on Feb. 2, 1859, and after arriving in California in 1880, Marie Arentz wed Reimers in Oakland three years later.

Also a writer he published a novel set in Norway entitled Unto the Heights of Simplicity.[3] While a resident of San Francisco in 1907-19, he studied at the Institute of Art. His art work was exhibited in the Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915 and San Francisco Academy of Art, 1916-. His works are in the collection of the Oakland Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago. Displaying a wide range of interest, Reimers was an active participant in the Ruskin Club of the University of California[4] and maintaining a friendship with the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

As well as an artist, he was also landscape architect for the San Joaquin Division of the Santa Fe Railway. While it is not known what stations were within Reimers responsibility, the line ran from Los Angeles through Bakersfield to Stockton and on to the San Francisco bay area at Richmond. Living in Stockton at the time, he delivered a paper on railway gardening at the Pacific States Floral Congress in 1901.[5] He laid out the planting of Fresno’s Roeding Park, after the property was donated to the city in 1903.[6] The park was seventy-five acres at the time.[7] Apparently Reimers split time between Stockton and Berkeley. In 1905, he purchased lots 2, 3, and 4, Block 5, from The Berkeley Development Company in Hopkins Terrace.[8] In 1906, Reimers also designed Hobart Park in Fresno on Q Street between Divisadero and Merced Streets. [9] The commissioners of Mooney Park, a 100 acre tract of valley oaks, in Tulares retained Reimers in December 1910.[10] By 1910, Marie and Johannes had three children, Emma, Alita, and Henry E.[11]Reimers also designed the garden for the headquarters of Roeding’s California Nursery Company in the Old Adobe Building in Niles, California.[12]

Reimers was a good friend of writer, Jack London,[13] who often stayed with him when visiting Stockton.[14] On May 4, 1095, London spoke to the Critic Club at Reimers’ home in Stockton.[15] In the summer of 1906, Reimers supervised the planting of trees, vines, and shrubs, and a pyracantha hedge at the Wolf House[16] at what is now the Jack London Ranch State Historic Park.[17] Reimers also wrote one of the earliest reviews of London’s Call of the Wild.

Divorced from Marie, he was living in San Leandro by 1930.[18] Marie was living in Berkeley.[19] A self-taught artist, she began painting at age 69 while a resident of Berkeley. She exhibited locally with the Berkeley League of Fine Arts in 1929 and in 1930 sent 14 of her watercolors to Paris for exhibition. She was a resident of Berkeley until her death on Jan. 17, 1946.

Reimers died of pneumonia in San Leandro on Aug. 22, 1953. His son, Frederick Holberg Reimers was an architect and pastelist in Berkeley, California, designing many of the picturesque homes of Berkeley and the Piedmont hills. The William and Helen Reynolds house in Thousand Oaks was one of his significant works.

Major Projects:

Hobart Park, East Divisidero Street, Fresno, CA. c. 1906

Roeding Park, 890 W. Belmont Avenue, Fresno, CA. 93728, c. 1903. see http://www.saveroedingpark.org/.

Mooney Grove Park, 27000 S. Mooney Boulevard, Visalia, CA. 93277, c. 1910.

Old Adobe Building Garden (home of California Nursery Company), Fresno, CA. c. 1923.

[1] California Death Index, 1940-1977.
[2] “Plans Program,” Oakland Tribune, September 12, 1917, and “Frolich to Tell of Clay Modelling,” October 14, 1917, p. 39.
[3] Reimers, Johannes, Unto the Heights of Simplicity, Boston: L. C. Page and Company, 1900.
[4] “Ruskin Club” Oakland Tribune, January 31, 1908, p. 7, and February 8, 1908, p. 2.
[5] Reimers, Johannes, “Railway Gardening in California,” Proceedings Pacific States Floral Congress, San Francisco, 1901, p. 75.
[6] Rehart, Catherine Morison, The Valley’s Legends and Legacies III, Fresno: Quill Driver Books, 1999, p. 25.
[7] “Roeding Park” Fresno Bee, April 2, 1953, p. 2.
[8] “Official Records,” Oakland Tribune, November 9, 1095, p. 15.
[9] Powell, John Edward, “Hobart Park, Historic Resources Inventory Nomination,” City of Fresno, August 31, 1994, and Rehart, Catherine Morison, The Valley’s Legends and Legacies III, Fresno: Quill Driver Books, 1999, p. 299.
[10] Small, Kathleen Edwards, History of Tulares County, Chicago: S. J. Clark and Company, 1926, p. 281.
[11] 1910 United States Census of Stockton, California, e.d. 136, p. 1B.
[12] “Another View of the Old Adobe in Niles”, The Daily Review, Hayward, CA, August 4, 1974, p. 12.
[13] “California Artists Honor Jack London,” Oakland Tribune, March 26, 1920, p. 18.
[14] London, Charmain, The Book of Jack London, New York: The Century Company, 1921, ch. XXV, p. 16.
[15]“London’s Anarchic Talk,” Oakland Tribune, March 4, 1905, p. 12.
[16] Cultural Resources of the Jack London State Historic Park, 1987 , p. 63.
[17] Utah State University Archives, The Jack London Papers, Box 16, Pottawattamie County Historical Society, Reimers to Charmain London, Nov. 4, 1927, and Feb. 6, 1947.
[18] 1930 United States Census of San Leandro, e.d 1-240, p. 3B.
[19] 1930 United States Census of Berkeley California, e.d. I-320, p. 13A.

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANSCAPE ARCHITECTURE: ARTHUR AND MARIE BERGER

2008-03-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

PIONEERS OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Arthur S. and Marie H. Berger
By Kurt Culbertson ©2008

Arthur Schoene Berger [1903-1960] and Marie Harbeck Berger [1907-1963], were among the earliest practitioners of the modernist approach to landscape architecture pioneered by Thomas Church, Garrett Eckbo, and others.

Arthur S. Berger was born in Hartwell, Harvey County, Kansas, on March 19, 1903. He graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in biology in 1925. Berger distinguished himself at an early age, producing at 24 the first autoluminar photograph.

By 1927 Arthur traveled to Europe and was living at 14 Wendell Street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just off the Harvard University campus where received his graduate degree in landscape architecture in 1928. Berger was a finalist for the Rome Prize in 1929 and 1930. After one year with the Long Island State Park Commission in 1930, he worked the next five years for Ferrucio Vitale. Berger was then sent by the Vitale office to oversee the landscape construction of the Toledo Art Museum. Encouraged to stay in the city by prominent Tolego residents, he formed the firm of Berger and Linnard with Lawrence G. Linnard [1901-1983]. Linnard had also worked with Vitale in New York prior to moving to Cleveland to oversee _______. During their practice together from 1934 to 1937, they created the gardens of numerous large estates in the Toledo area including Elm House in Perrysburg, Ohio, as well as, projects in Detroit and Cleveland. From 1937 to 1944, Arthur spent his summer in Toledo and his winters in Dallas, Texas.

Marie Monica Harbeck Berger was born in Seattle, Washington, on June 11, 1907. A 1925 graduate of Grants Pass (Oregon) High School she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture in 1932 from Oregon State University, the last year in which a professional degree program in landscape architecture was taught there. The landscape architecture program was then moved to the University of Oregon in Eugene to be part of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Professor Frederick A. Cuthbert, Marie’s long-time friend and mentor, who had chaired the program at Oregon State, also moved to Eugene in the transfer.

Cuthbert assisted the young Harbeck in finding work initially with architect, Gardner T. Bailey, and then in the office of Thomas Church in San Francisco. There she completed the design of the L.D. Owen Residence in Sausalito, as well as, numerous other projects. Cuthbert remained in contact with Marie during her days in San Francisco. Marie assisted with student visits to the Bay area and maintained a lifelong interest in the program at University of Oregon. She exhibited at the Architectural League of New York prior to World War II. From 1942 to 1944, Marie contributed her design skills to the war effort by teaching camouflage techniques at the Camouflage Branch at Camp Belvoir, Virginia. There she met Arthur Berger. Arthur convinced Marie to join him in Dallas in 1945, first as his business partner, and then as his wife. The two were married on July 5, 1946.

They were soon recognized as among the foremost landscape architects in the country. Over time they added partners, Houston B. Bliss and Dick Heiderich, who joined in their design efforts. They designed numerous college campuses, including Trinity University in San Antonio and the Science Quadrangle for St. Mark’s School. Commercial and industrial work included the Texas Instruments Headquarters in Dallas, and the company’s offices on Speedway in Houston, the Dallas Furniture Mart, and the grounds of the Dallas Morning News. Other projects included the roof garden of the Dallas Public Library, a resort in Jamaica, and another resort in Salado, Bell County, Texas. Many of their collaborations were with the great San Antonio architect, O’Neill Ford.

They became noted for Texas gardens that utilized the interplay of light and shade, in that House and Garden Editor Dr. Joseph E. Howland, called “Texas Chiaroscuro.” Unlike Thomas Church and others who promoted large terraces as a means to outdoor living, Howland noted that the Bergers foresaw the universality of air-conditioned space and the movement indoors it would bring. Residential gardens included the McNaughton and Haggerty gardens in Dallas, the Frank Murchison home in San Antonio, the Fort Worth garden of Mr. and Mrs. O.P. Leonard, and San Domingo Ranch, the home of Texas oilman, Dudley T. Dougherty in Beeville, Texas. Their most significant residential design was Rancho Encinal, the home of the Everett Lee and Nell DeGolyer on White Rock Lake in Dallas. The couple also restored the gardens of Holly Hedges in Natchez, Mississippi, as well. This garden is now a key component of the Dallas Arboretum. Both Arthur and Marie were noted for their gentle personalities. They were adored by their clients with whom they closely collaborated in creating their gardens.

In 1958, the Berger’s traveled to Europe where their work was featured at the International Landscape Architecture Exposition in Zurich, Switzerland. Arthur and Marie were tireless supporters of the profession, frequently lecturing to schools around the country. Arthur’s last lecture was at the University of North Carolina in 1958. The following year, he was named an ASLA Fellow. Arthur died tragically in an automobile accident in Dallas on August 13, 1960 at the age of 57. Following Arthur’s death, Marie returned to Eugene. At the time of her death in 1964, Marie Berger, endowed scholarships in landscape architecture and horticulture at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University, and Trinity University in San Antonio.

Bibliography:

1. 1910 United States Census Record of Hartwell, Harvey County, Kansas, E.D. 85, 6B.
2. United States Border Crossing Records, indicated that Berger and his mother, Lena, arrived in the United States via Quebec aboard the S. S. Express, from Chersbourg, France, on September 19, 1927. They list their address as 14 Wendell Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
3. 1930 United States Census Record of New York, New York,
4. New York Passenger List, indicated that Berger arrived in New York, on March 2, 1939, from Naples, Italy, aboard the ship Rex.
5. Berger, Arthur S. “Factory Management and Maintenance,” April, 1940.
6. Berger, Arthur, “Plan the Shadows in Your Garden,” House and Garden 95, March 1949, 118-119.
7. New York Passenger List, indicates that Berger arrived in New York City from La Havre, France, aboard the De Grasse, on Nov. 27, 1949, Serila T 715, Roll T715_7764, page 2.
8. “O.P. Leonard Estate, Fort Worth, Texas” ,Condé Nast, June 1950.
9. “Pace Setter House,” House Beautiful, Feb. 1955.
10. “Berger’s Dallas Hilltop”, Interiors, February 1956, 78-83.
11. Howland, Dr. Joseph, Landcape Architecture, “Marie and Arthur Berger, A Tribute,” 1964. 266-270.
12. Dillon, David, The Architecture of O’Neal Ford, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964, p.
13. “The Berger Garden,” ASLA Southwest News, March 1965.
14. “Grad Leaves OSU Fund,” The Oregonian, May 19, 1967.
15. Landscape Architecture, News Release, University of Oregon, News Bureau, March 6, 1968.
16. “110,000 Given to U of O For Landscape Scholarships” Eugene Register-Guard, Monday, March 11, 1968.
17. “ASLA Fellow Biographical Sketch,” Files of the American Society of Landscape Architecture, August 18, 1977.
18. Dillon, David, The Architecture of O’Neal Ford, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999, 35, 60,79,81,101.
19. Texas Death Index 1903-2000, 89.
20. Treib, Mark, The Architecture of Landscape 1940-1960, “The 1955 Pace-Setter House,”Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, 185.
21. Conversation with David Dillon, Architecture Critic, Dallas Morning News, March 16, 2008
22. University of California Berkeley SPIRO slide collection, contains two slides of the L.D. Owens House, 39 Atwood Avenue, Sausalito, California

Major Projects:

1. Rancho Encinal, the DeGolyer Estate (now part of the Dallas Botanical Garden), 8525 Garland Road, Dallas, Texas 75128, [1937] www.dallasarboretum.org
2. Elm House, the former home of Mr. and Mrs. Clare J. Hoffman, Perrysburg, Ohio [1938]
3. Mrs. L.D. Owens Residence, 39 Atwood Avenue, [Gardner A. Bailey, Architect] Sausalito, California [1939], garden by Marie Harbeck.
4. Mr. and Mrs. Frank T. Murchison Residence, 9 Ironwood Road, San Antonio, Texas [ab. 1939], [O’Neill Ford, Architect]
5. Mr. and Mrs. William McNeel Residence, San Antonio, Texas [1946 – O’Neil Ford, Architect]
6. Trinity University, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, Texas 78212-7200 1(210)999-7011 [ab. 1948 -master plan by William Wurster and O’Neil Ford, Architects ]
7. Berger Residence, 3906 Stonebridge, Dallas, Texas [ab. 1948 – O’Neil Ford, Architect, tragically destroyed in 1995]
8. University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
9. Denver Public Library Roof Garden, Dallas, Texas
10. Dallas Furniture Mart, Hiline Drive, Dallas, Texas [Jacob E. Anderson, Architect]
11. Dallas Morning News, Dallas, Texas

12. The Restoration of Holly Hedges, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Hart Miller Residence, Natchez, Mississippi, [1949]
13. San Domingo Ranch, the Dudley T. Dougherty Residence, Highway 181N, Bee County, Beeville, Texas 78102, 1(361) 358-1244 [1950]
14. 3525 Turtle Creek Boulevard Apartment Building [1950] Howard Meyer Architect]
15. Temple Emanu-El, Dallas, Texas [1953-1959] [Howard Meyer, Max Sanfield, and William Wurster Architects]
16. The 1955 House Beautiful Pace-Setter House, Texas State Fair, [1954] [Harwell Hamilton Harris, Architect]
17. Texas Instruments Corporate Campus, Dallas, Texas, [1955], [O’Neil Ford, Architect]
18. Mr. and Mrs. Tom Slick Residence, Devine Road, San Antonio, Texas, [1957], [O’Neil Ford Architect]
19. Dallas Patrick and Bea Haggerty Residence, 5455 Northbrook, Dallas, Texas [1958 – O’Neill Ford, Architect]
20. St. Marks School of Texas, Science and Mathematics Quadrangle, 10600 Preston Road, Dallas, Texas 75230-4000 [Marie Berger, 1961 – O’Neil Ford, Architect]
21. Mr. and Mrs. Eugene McDermott Residence (founder of Texas Instruments), Dallas, Texas
22. Mr. and Mrs. Marshall Matson Residence,
23. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh McLaurin Residence, Dallas, Texas
24. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis McNaughton Residence, Dallas, Texas
25. Mrs. Wirt Davis Residence (President, Republic National Bank), Dallas, Texas
26. Mr. and Mrs. Roland Bond Residence, Dallas, Texas [O’Neil Ford, Architect]
27. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Urschel Residence, San Antonio, Texas
28. Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Seeligson Residence, San Antonio, Texas [James Reily Gordon, Architect]
29. The Dewar Residence, San Antonio, Texas
30. Mr. and Mrs. B.F. Philips, Jr. Residence, 1815 Brookview, Dallas, Texas
31. Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hartman Residence, (headmaster of St. Marks School) 10600 Preston Road, Dallas, Texas.

Historic Landscapes of Nebraska

2006-11-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

HISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF NEBRASKA
By Kurt Culbertson ©November 1, 2006

Designer Project Location Year Status

Rudolph Ulrich [1841-1906] Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition Omaha, Nebraska 1898

George Edward Kessler [ 1862-1923]
Dundee Omaha, Nebraska 1905
Sleepy Hollow Subdivision Omaha, Nebraska 1907
Parks South Omaha, Nebraska 1915

Historic Landscapes of Iowa

2006-11-05T20:35:00.000-07:00

HISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF IOWA H
By Kurt Culbertson ©November 1, 2006

Designer Project Location Year Status
Jacob Wiedenmann [1829-1893] Iowa State Capitol Grounds (with Olmsted) Des Moines, Iowa
Charles H.W. Straker [1826-1900] Aspen Grove Cemetery Addition (with Steyh) Burlington, Iowa
Snake Alley Park (with Steyh) Burlington, Iowa
Crapo Park Burlington, Iowa
North Hill Park Burlington, Iowa
William Steyh [1845-1918] State Hospital for the Insane Mt. Pleasant, Iowa 1871
Cemetery Centerville, Iowa 1897
Jerome Bock [1822-1906] Nealley Brothers and Bock Nursery Burlington, Iowa
Bock Residence Burlington, Iowa

Historic Landscapes of Colorado

2006-11-05T20:29:00.000-07:00

HISTORIC LANDSCAPE OF COLORADO
By Kurt Culbertson ©November 1, 2006

Designer Project Location Year Status

Reinhold Schuetze [1860-1909] Fairmount Cemetery Denver, Colorado 1890 Extant
Colorado State Capitol Grounds Denver, Colorado 1890, 1895 Extant
City Park Denver, Colorado 1891 Extant
East Eighteenth Avenue Denver, Colorado Extant
Cheesman Park Denver, Colorado Extant
Washington Park Denver, Colorado Extant
Chaffee Park Denver, Colorado 1894 Extant
Platte Park Denver, Colorado 1896 Extant
Highland Park Denver, Colorado 1899 Extant

Frederick Von Holdt [1861-1935] Greenwood Cemetery Denver, Colorado 1893 Extant

S. R. DeBoer

George Edward Kessler [1862-1923]
Capital Hill Subdivision Denver, Colorado 1908 Extant
Sunken Gardens Park Denver, Colorado 1909 Extant
Cheesman Memorial/Cheesman Park Denver, Colorado 1909 Extant
Denver Art Museum Denver, Colorado 1909 Extant
Washington Park Pavilion Denver, Colorado 1909 Extant
Park and Boulevard System Denver, Colorado 1909 Extant
Cheesman Estate Denver, Colorado 1910 Extant Now Colorado Governor's Mansion

Historic Landscapes of Kansas

2006-11-05T20:17:00.000-07:00

HISTORIC LANDSCAPES OF KANSAS
Kurt Culbertson©2006

Designer Project Address Location Date
George Kessler [1862-1923]
Merriam Park Merriam Park, Kansas 1883
Gage Park Topeka, Kansas 1899
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas 1904
Baker University Baldwin, Kansas 1904
Ottawa University Ottawa, Kansas 1906
Untitled Shawnee, Kansas 1907
Mt. Saint Scholastica Atchinson, Kansas 1907
P.W. Emery Residence Lawrence, Kansas 1907
Park and Boulevard System Kansas City, Kansas 1907
Untitled Shawnee, Kansas 1907
Lincoln Park Pittsburg, Kansas 1908
College of Emporia Emporia, Kansas 1911
Hutchinson Fairgrounds Hutchinson, Kansas 1912
Washburn University Topeka, Kansas 1914
Riverside Park Independence, Kansas 1914
Anton Reinisch Edgewood Park Topeka, Kansas 1913
Sanitorium Park Topeka, Kansas 1914
Ripley Park Topeka, Kansas 1918
Central Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Chesney Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Children's Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
City Park Topeka, Kansas
East Lawn Park Topeka, Kansas
Euclid Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Gage Park Topeka, Kansas
Garfield Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Holiday Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Hunton Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Lakewood Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Willow Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
West Lawn Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Washburn Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Mount Hope Cemetery Topeka, Kansas
Ottawa University Campus Plan Ottawa, Kansas 1908
Horace Schaler Cleveland [ - ]

Leopold Weltz [1825-1890]
Oak Hill Cemetery Lawrence, Kansas

Maximilian Kern [1830-1915]
Kansas State Agricultural College Manhattan, Kansas 1884

Other Projects
Fort Scott National Cemetery Fort Scott, Kansas
"Eisenhower Park/Abilene City Park
Historic District" Abilene, Kansas "National Register
No. 02000608"
Lander Park Abilene, Kansas "National Register
No. 87000813"
Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery Fort Leavenworth, Kansas "National Register
No. 99000834"
Union Park Historic District Leavenworth, Kansas "National Register
No. 02000722"
"Western Branch, National Home for
Disabled Volunteer Soldiers Historic District" Leavenworth, Kansas National Register No. 94000671
Marion County Park and Lake Marion, Kansas National Register No. 02000607
Lakewood Park Salina, Kansas National Register No. 04000579
Park Place -Fairview Historic District Wichita, Kansas National Register No. 04000778
Topeka Cemetery Topeka, Kansas National Register No. 01000409
Huron Cemetery Kansas City, Kansas National Register No. 71000335
Lake of the Forest Historic District Bonner Springs, Kansas National Register No. 95001553
Westheight Manor District Kansas City, Kansas National Register No. 75000725, and 82004620
Santa Fe Depot Dodge City, Kansas

Chronological Listing of the Works of George Edward Kessler [1862-1923]

2006-11-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

CHRONOLOGICAL LISTINGS OF THE WORK OF GEORGE EDWARD KESSLER [1890-1923]
Kurt Culbertson©1986

Project Address Location Date
Merriam Park Merriam Park, Kansas 1883
Woodmere Cemetery Addition Detroit, Michigan 1883
John Mastin Farm Grounds Johnson County, Missouri 1886
Charles Lewis Estate Detroit, Michigan 1887
Hyde Park Kansas City, Missouri 1887
Missouri Valley College Marshall, Missouri 1890
Park and Boulevard System Excelsior Springs, Missouri 1890
Roland Park, Phase One Baltimore, Maryland 1891
Henry Van Blunt Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1891
August Meyer Residence 2806 Independence Kansas City, Missouri 1891
Fairlawn Cemetery Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 1892
Homer Reed Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1892
Mastin Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1892
Burgess Park Westport, Missouri 1892
Gardner Lanthrop Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1893
Park and Boulevard System Kansas City, Missouri 1893
Peoria Heights Peoria, Illinois 1894
Harley Park Boonville, Missouri 1897
Euclid Heights Cleveland, Ohio 1898
Gage Park Topeka, Kansas 1899
Park and Boulevard System Memphis, Tennessee 1900
Missouri State Fairgrounds Sedalia, Missouri 1900
Riverview Park Hannibal, Missouri 1900
Louisiana Purchase Exposition St.Louis, Missouri 1900-1904
"Missouri Colony for the Feeble
Minded and Epeleptic" Marshall, Missouri 1901
Riverside Park Memphis, Tennessee 1901
Overton Park Memphis, Tennessee 1901
Home for Aged People 22nd and Tracy Street Kansas City, Missouri 1901
Brunner Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1901
Smiley Residence 6 Riverside Drive Boonville, Missouri 1901
Chitaqua Assembly Carthage, Missouri 1902
Oaklawn Cemetery Little Rock, Arkansas 1902
Merrill Property Kansas City, Missouri 1902
Pavilion for South Springs Excelsior Springs, Missouri 1902
2nd Presbyterian Church Kansas City, Missouri 1902
Walnut Grove Cemetery Boonville, Missouri 1902
Epworth University Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 1903
R. Hinton Douglas Residence Valley Park, Missouri 1903
Governor Francis Residence 4421 Maryland Avenue St.Louis, Missouri 1903
University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas 1904
Baker University Baldwin, Kansas 1904
Restoration of Forest Park St.Louis, Missouri 1905
Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tennessee 1905
Dundee Omaha, Nebraska 1905
Home for the Friendless St.Louis, Missouri 1905
Judge Crum Residence 555____ Avenue St.Louis, Missouri 1905
Park and Boulevard System Indianapolis, Indiana 1905
Washington University St.Louis, Missouri 1906
William Jewell College Liberty, Missouri 1906
Constitution Church 7th and Hall Kansas City, Missouri 1906
Old Folks Home Excelsior Springs, Missouri 1906
Park and Boulevard System Syracuse, New York 1096
Sunset Park Evansville, Indiana 1906
Mesker Park Evansville, Indiana 1906
Corbin Park Evansville, Indiana 1906
Ottawa University Ottawa, Kansas 1906
Untitled Shawnee, Kansas 1907
Bates Residence Fordyce, Arkansas 1907
Boice Residence Channing, Texas 1907
Parks Fort Smith, Arkansas 1907
Untitled (for Mr. Chamberlain) South Denver, Colorado 1907
Jones Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1907
Mt. Saint Scholastica Atchinson, Kansas 1907
University of Oklahoma Norman, Oklahoma 1907
Untitled Rodgers, Arkansas 1907
Cabanne Library 1106 Union Boulevard St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Masonic Home of Missouri 5351 Delmar St.Louis, Missouri 1907
St. Louis and Sub. RR and Courthouse St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Collins Flats St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Valley Park Hotel St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Untitled Concordia, Missouri 1907
Christian Science Church 475 N. Kingshighway St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Parks Ogden, Utah 1907
P.W. Emery Residence Lawrence, Kansas 1907
W. A. Rule Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1907
Fair Park Dallas, Texas 1907
Women's Magazine Building St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Farmington Hospital, No. 4 Farmington, Missouri 1907
Lancaster Park Jackson, Tennessee 1907
Sleepy Hollow Subdivision Omaha, Nebraska 1907
B. Nugent Residence Westmoreland Place St.Louis, Missouri 1907
James P. Dawson Residence St.Louis, Missouri 1907
C.H. Howard Residence St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Hortense Place St.Louis, Missouri 1907
C. H. Huttig Japanese Garden St.Louis, Missouri 1907
C.H. Spencer Residence St.Louis, Missouri 1907
D. H. Catlin Residence St.Louis, Missouri 1907
George O. Carpenter Residence St.Louis, Missouri 1907
George F. Tower Residence St.Louis, Missouri 1907
A.P. DeCamp Residence St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Dr. R.H. Jesse St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Kings Highway St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Brendonwood Indianapolis, Indiana 1907
Untitled Hot Springs, South Dakota 1907
Country Club District Kansas City, Missouri 1907
Park and Boulevard System Cincinnati, Ohio 1907
Park and Boulevard System Kansas City, Kansas 1907
J. G. Babb Residence Columbia, Missouri 1907
George S. Steeman Residence Westmoreland Place St.Louis, Missouri 1907
State Capitol Grounds Guthrie, Oklahoma 1907
Untitled Anderson, Indiana 1907
Untitled Shawnee, Kansas 1907
St. Joseph's Orphans Home St. Joseph, Missouri 1907
McGowan Residence Indianapolis, Indiana 1907
Dr. Haskell Residence Alton, Illinois 1907
River Des Peres Park St.Louis, Missouri 1907
State Asylum St. Joseph, Missouri 1907
City Plan Commission Report St. Louis, Missouri 1907
Jewish Hospital 216 South Kingshighway St.Louis, Missouri 1907
Missouri State Hospital 5400 Arsenal St. Louis, Missouri 1907
Missouri State Normal School Springfield, Missouri 1908
Campbell Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1908
Lincoln Park Pittsburg, Kansas 1908
Muskogee Country Club Muskogee, Oklahoma 1908
Capital Hill Subdivision Denver, Colorado 1908
Sunken Gardens Park Denver, Colorado 1909
Cheesman Memorial/Cheesman Park Denver, Colorado 1909
Denver Art Museum Denver, Colorado 1909
Mason Property Haddum, Arkansas 1909
R.R.S. Parsons Residence Bonne Terre, Missouri 1909
R. F. Scott Residence ? 1909
Washington Park Pavilion Denver, Colorado 1909
Park and Boulevard System Fort Worth, Texas 1909
Park and Boulevard System Denver, Colorado 1909
Park and Boulevard System Pensacola, Florida 1909
Kendall Property Kansas City, Missouri 1909
University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, Ohio 1909
Kentucky State Normal School Bowling Green, Kentucky 1909
Park Tarkio, Missouri 1909
Mississippi State University Starksville, Mississippi 1909
Westport High School Kansas City, Missouri 1909
Park and Boulevard System East St. Louis, Illinois 1910
Emerson Park East St. Louis, Illinois 1910
Jones Woods East St. Louis, Illinois 1910
Cameron Park Waco, Texas 1910
A.W. Grant Fort Worth, Texas 1910
Iowa State Fairgrounds 1910
University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg, Mississippi 1910
Lincoln Institute Jefferson City, Missouri 1910
University of Missouri Columbia, Missouri 1910
Mississippi College Clinton, Mississippi 1910
Cheesman Estate Denver, Colorado 1910
Untitled Dayton, Ohio 1910
Untitled Des Moines, Iowa 1910
Untitled Tyler, Texas 1910
Missouri State Capitol Jefferson City, Missouri 1911
Rim Railroads Grand Canyon, Arizona 1911
W. K. Bixby Residence St. Louis, Missouri 1911
Park and Boulevard System Fort Wayne, Indiana 1911
Comprehensive Plan Dallas, Texas 1911
College of Emporia Emporia, Kansas 1911
Palisades Parkway New York State 1911
Park and Boulevard System Hamilton, Ohio 1912
Ludlow Park Hamilton, Ohio 1912
Hutchinson Fairgrounds Hutchinson, Kansas 1912
Memorial Grounds/Ethical Society St. Louis, Missouri 1912
Niagara Reservation Niagara, New York 1912
University of Kentucky Lexington, Kentucky 1912
Miami University Oxford, Ohio 1912
Baptist College Shanghai, China 1912
Park and Boulevard System St. Joseph, Missouri 1912
Park and Boulevard System South Bend, Indiana 1912
Park and Boulevard System Hamilton, Ohio 1912
Samuel Residence St. Joseph, Missouri 1912
Prospect Park St. Joseph, Missouri 1913
Delbert J. Haff Residence Kansas City, Missouri 1913
Siloam Gardens Excelsior Springs, Missouri 1914
Crown Hill Cemetery Kansas City, Missouri 1914
Washburn University Topeka, Kansas 1914
Riverside Park Independence, Kansas 1914
Hugh Stephens Residence Jefferson City, Missouri 1914
Irwin Park Edinburgh, Indiana 1915
Untitled Detroit, Michigan 1915
Parks South Omaha, Nebraska 1915
Farm for Boys Independence, Missouri 1915
Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana 1915
Hermann Park Houston, Texas 1915
Shadyside Subdivision Houston, Texas 1915
Cleveland Park Houston, Texas 1916
East Baldwin Park Houston, Texas 1916
Settegast Park Houston, Texas 1916
Highland Park (formerly Woodland Park) Houston, Texas 1916
Untitled Peru, Indiana 1916
Rose Polytechnic University Terre Haute, Indiana 1916
Highland Park, Phase II Dallas, Texas 1916
Munson Park Denison, Texas 1917
Forest Park Denison, Texas 1917
Development for E.M. Ashton Salt Lake City, Utah 1917
U.S. Housing Corporation Davenport, Iowa 1918
U.S. Housing Corporation Rock Island, Illinois 1918
U.S. Housing Corporation Moline, Illinois 1918
U.S. Housing Corporation East Moline, Illinois 1918
Comprehensive Plan Sherman, Texas 1919
Consultant to Plan Commission Salt Lake City, Utah 1919
Comprehensive Plan Wichita Falls, Texas 1921
Park and Boulevard System Terre Haute, Indiana 1921
Young Residence Mineral Wells, Texas 1922
Comprehensive Plan Longview, Washington 1922
Butler University Indianapolis, Indiana 1923
Chapultepec Heights Mexico City, Mexico 1923
Comprehensive Plan El Paso, Texas 1923
Park and Boulevard System Springfield, Ohio 1923

Landscape Architecture Projects by German-American Designers

2006-11-05T18:25:00.000-07:00

INVENTORY OF LANDSCAPES BY GERMAN-AMERICANS
By Kurt Culbertson ©November 1, 2006

Designer Project Location Year Status

Christopher Witt [1675-1765] Germantown Botanical Garden Germantown, Pennsylvania 1718
Johannes Kelpius [?-1708] Botanical Garden Germantown, Pennsylvania
Christian Lehman [?-?] Nursery Germantown, Pennsylvania
Martin Baumann [1791-1865] Baumann Nursery Germantown, Pennsylvania 1837
Frederick Pursh [1774-1820] The Woodlands, William Hamilton Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Elgins Gardens, David Hosack New York, New York 1807
W.G. Eisele [1846-?] Shadowlawn, Hubert Parsons Estate West Long Branch, New Jersey
Christian Eisele [1845-?] Upper Tioga, Pennsylvania
Henry Dreer [1818-1873] Dreer Nursery Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Riverton, New Jersey
New Harmony Botanical Garden New Harmony, Pennsylvania c. 1804
George Huessler [1751-1817] Patrick Tracy Estate Newburyport, Massachusetts c. 1780
Elias Hasket Derby Estate Salem, Massachusetts c. 1790 Extant
Derby Farm Danvers, Massachusetts
Southfields Salem, Massachusetts
Glen Magna for Joseph Peabody Danvers, Massachusetts Extant
Philip Walter [?-1807] Belvedere for Col. John Eager Howard Baltimore, Maryland c. 1787
Maximilian Henisler [?-?] Henisler Nursery Baltimore, Maryland c. 1793
Unknown Salzburger Public Garden Ebenezer, South Carolina c. 1733
Public Gardens New Ebenezer, South Carolina c. 1736
Jacob Lung (?) [1714-?] Upland Garden and Medical Garden Wachovia, North Carolina c. 1753
Christian Gottlieb Reuter [1717-1777] Upland or Vegetable Garden Bethabara, North Carolina c.1759
Medical Garden Bethabara, North Carolina c.1761
Augustus Staub [1811-?] Staub Nursery Salem, North Carolina c.1850
Johan Frederick Gennerick [1747-1807] Gennerick Nursery Charleston, South Carolina c. 1807
Frederick Facorn [?-?] Facorn Nursery Cincinnati, Ohio c. 1815
Martin Baum [1765-1831] Baum Residence Cincinnati, Ohio c. 1815 Extant
Wilhelm Benque [1814-1895] Central Park Competition Submittal New York, New York 1858
Henry L. Hoquet Estate New York, New York (between 114th and 145th)
Henry Sheldon Estate Tarrytown, New York
John Jacob Rink [?-?] Central Park Competition Submittal New York, New York 1858
Wilhelm L. Fischer [1819-1899] Central Park (with Olmsted) New York, New York 1858 Extant
Riverside Drive New York, New York
Franklin Park (with Olmsted) New York, New York
Anton Ignatz Pilat [1820-1870] Central Park New York, New York 1858 Extant
Thomas Metcalf Estate Augusta, Georgia c.1853
Madison Square New York, New York 1870
The Battery New York, New York
City Hall Park New York, New York
Canal Street Park New York, New York
Duane Street Park New York, New York
Beach Street Park New York, New York
Sixth Avenue Park New York, New York
Massachusetts Agricultural College Amherst, Massachusetts
Mount Morris Square (now Marcus Garvey Park) New York, New York 1867
Prospect Park (with Olmsted) Brooklyn, New York
Jacob Wiedenmann [1829-1893] Cedar Hill Cemetery Hartford, Connecticut c.1856
Bushnell Park Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford Retreat (with Olmsted) Hartford, Connecticut
Asylum Grounds (with Olmsted) Hartford, Connecticut c. 1860
Henry R. Hyde Estate (with Olmsted) West Islip, Long Island, New York c. 1874
Schuylkill Reservior (with Olmsted) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Congress Park (with Olmsted) Saratoga, New York 1875
Hot Springs Reservation (with Olmsted) Hot Springs, Arkansas
Iowa State Capitol Grounds (with Olmsted) Des Moines, Iowa
George Winsom Folsom Estate Brattleboro, Vermont
W.R. Barr Estate Turners, New York 1882
Pope Park Hartford, Connecticut 1893
Rudolph Ulrich [1841-1906] Prospect Park (with Olmsted) Brooklyn, New York
Linden Towers San Mateo, California
Chateau Fresno Fresno, California
Thurlow Lodge Menlo Park, California
Hotel Rafael San Rafael, California
Hotel Del Monte Monterey, California
Raymond Hotel South Pasadena, California
Stanford Ranch Palo Alto, California
Arizona Garden, Golden Gate Park San Francisco, California
Arizona Garden, Stanford University Palo Alto, California
Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition Omaha, Nebraska 1898
Pan-American Exposition Grounds Buffalo, New York 1900
Eugene Achilles Baumann [1817-1869] Llewelyn Park Orange, New Jersey
Central Park (with Olmsted) New York, New York 1858 Extant
Beaulieu Estate of Federico Barreda (with Vaux) Newport, Rhode Island 1859
D. Scull Estate Hestonville, Pennsylvania
Uriah Hill Estate Westchester County, New York
Baumann Nurseries Rahway, New Jersey c. 1865
Robert Demcker [1821-1925] Central Park (with Olmsted) New York, New York c. 1871 Extant
Park Avenue New York, New York 1871 Extant
Bronx Park New York, New York c.1891 Extant
Bronx Park Zoo (?) New York, New York Extant
New York Botanical Gardens (?) New York, New York Extant
Herman Merkel [1874-?] Bronx Zoo New York, New York Extant
Bronx River Parkway Westchester County, New York Extant
Hermann Grundel [1824-?] Back Bay Competition (winning entry) Boston, Massachusetts 1878 Extant
Carl Alwin Schenck [1868-?] Biltmore Forest (with Olmsted) Asheville, North Carolina c. 1898 Extant
Paul Scheibe [1874-1955] National Cash Register Company (with Olmsted) Dayton, Ohio
F. A. Friedenberger 1866-?] National Cash Register Company (with Olmsted) Dayton, Ohio
Francis Xaxier Hillenmeyer [1814-1893] Hillenmeyer Nurseries Lexington, Kentucky c. 1846 Extant
Adolphus Heiman [1809-1862] Belmont, Estate of Joseph and Adelicia Acklen Nashville, Tennessee c.1852
Heinrich Adolph Engelhardt [1830-1897] Cemetery Richmond, Virginia c. 1851
Cemetery Raleigh, North Carolina c.1851
Belleville Cemetery Toronto, Canada c.1870
Mount Pleasant Cemetery Toronto, Canada c. 1870
Union Cemetery Port Hope, Ontario, Canada
Town Park Port Hope, Ontario, Canada
Deaf and Dumb Institution Belleville, Ontario, Canada
Ontario Institution for the Education of the Blind Brantford, Ontario, Canada
Augustus Faul [1823-1884] Druid Hill Park Baltimore, Maryland
Wilehelm Christian Bischoff [1791-1881] Forsyth Park Savannah, Georgia c.1852
Charles F. Reichart White Point Gardens Savannah, Georgia c. 1837
Vahlmeir or Wohlman {?-?] Prospect Hill, now Arcadia Plantation Georgetown, South Carolina c.1836
Rosemont, The Pyatt Estate Georgetown, South Carolina
William Rudolph Otto Bergholz [1832-1901] Le Grand Canon Overlake Estate Burlington, Vermont c.1859
Pomaria Nurseries Columbia, South Carolina c.1860
Scholz [?-?] Hampton-Preston Nurseries Columbia, South Carolina
Otto Katzenstein [1868-1934] Pinehurst (with Olmsted) Pinehurst, North Carolina c.1896
Ainsley Park Subdivision Atlanta, Georgia c.1904
Druid Hills Subdivision (with Olmsted) Atlanta, Georgia
M.G. McDonald Estate Rome, Georgia c. 1904
Ernest G. Kontz Estate Atlanta, Georgia c. 1909
Tift Park Albany, Georgia c. 1912
Hugh L. Richardson Estate (with Manning) Atlanta, Georgia c.1921
Hermann Josef Schwarzmann [1846-1891] Fairmont Park Philadelphia, Pennsylvania c.1872
Philadelphia Zoo Philadelphia, Pennsylvania c.1873
Francis Xavier Berthold Frosch [1867-1920] Friendship Park Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania c.1900
Holiday Park Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania c.1900
Highland Park Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania c.1896
George Ellwanger [1816-1890] Mount Hope Botanical and Pomological Gardens Rochester, New York c.1838
Hans Jacob Ehlers [1804-1858] Vanderbilt Mansion Hudson River, New York
Rokeby, William B. Astor Estate Barrytown, New York
Steen Veletje, Franklin H. Delano Estate Barrytown, New York
Montgomery Place Annandale, New York
Ferncliff Rhinebeck, New York
Louis Augustus Ehlers [1835-1911] Clifton Point, Marienruh, Ehlers Estate Rhinebeck, New York
Oak Terrace, Valentine Hall Estate Tivoli, New York
Ferdinand Mangold [1828-1905] Lyndhurst Hudson River, New York
General Mansfield Bradhurst Estate Carmansville, New York
Brown Lewis Estate Westchester County, New York
August Hager [1831 - ?] Hamlin Park Neighborhood (portions) Buffalo, New York c.1887
Adolph LeMoult [1844-1912] LeMoult's Nursery New York, New York c.1860 Extant
Andrew Ernst [1796-1861] Spring Garden Cincinnati, Ohio
Adolph Strauch [1822-1883] Spring Grove Cemetery Cincinnati, Ohio c.1854
Eden Park (with Sunderbruch) Cincinnati, Ohio 1869
Cinncinnati Zoo (with Theodor Findeisen)
Greenlawn Cemetery Hamilton, Ohio
Cemetery Hartford, Connecticut
August Sunderbruch [1830-1911] Eden Park (with Strauch) Cincinnati, Ohio 1869
Maximilian Kern [1830-1915] Ottawa Park Toledo, Ohio
Walbridge Park Toledo, Ohio
Toledo Zoo Toledo, Ohio
Riverside Park Toledo, Ohio
Collins Park Toledo, Ohio
City Park Toledo, Ohio
Central Grove (now Willys Park) Toledo, Ohio
Navarre Park Toledo, Ohio
Forest Park (with Julius Pitzman) St. Louis, Missouri 1876
Kansas State Agricultural College Lawrence, Kansas 1884
Forest Park Addition (with Julius Pitzman) St. Louis, Missouri 1887
George Edward Kessler [1862-1923] Ohio Centennial Exposition Grounds Toledo, Ohio 1903
Michael H. Horvath [1868-?] Horvath Nurseries Mentor, Ohio c.1914
J.L. Severence Estate Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Mrs. F. F. Prentiss Estate (with Manning) Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Elmer Schultz [1898-1975] Springbrook Gardens Mentor, Ohio 1946 Extant
Wayside Gardens (with J.J. Grullemans) Mentor, Ohio 1916 Extant
J.J. Grullemans [?-?] Wayside Gardens (with Schultz) Mentor, Ohio 1916 Extant
John L. Stelzig [1829-?] Schiller Park Columbus, Ohio c.1865 Extant
Georg Siebenthaler [1810-1900] Siebenthaler Nurseries Dayton, Ohio 1870 Extant
Karl (Charles) Beck [1827-?] Dayton Soldier's Home Dayton, Ohio c.1875
Leopold Weltz [1825-1890] Sugar Grove Cemetery Wilmington, Ohio 1857
Cemetery London, Ohio
Cemetery Springfield, Ohio
Cemetery Martinsville, Ohio
East Hill Cemetery Rushville, Indiana
Oak Hill Cemetery Lawrence, Kansas
Miami Cemetery Corwin, Ohio
Ohio State Fair Grounds
Eduard C. Krausnick [1820-1889 Lafayette Park St. Louis, Missouri c.1857
Benton Park St. Louis, Missouri 1866
Julius Pitzman [1837-1923] City Park Little Rock, Arkansas
Race Course Nashville, Tennessee
Granite City, Illinois Town Plan Granite City, Illinois
Westmoreland Place Subdivision St. Louis, Missouri
Oscar Felicien Dubuis [1849-1906] Glen Oak Park Peoria, Illinois 1895
South Park Peoria, Illinois
Laura Bradley Park Peoria, Illinois
Pleasure Driveway Peoria, Illinois
Jens Jensen [1860-1951] Edward Uihlein Estate Lake Geneva, Wisconsin 1901
Harold Hanson [?-?] University of Illinois Campus Plan Campaign-Urbana, Illinois 1871
Peter Reinberg [1858-1921]
Werner Hegemann [1881-1936] Kohler, Wisconsin Town Plan (with Peets) Kohler, Wisconsin 1915
Lake Forest (with Peets) Madison, Wisconsin 1916
E. Richard Meinig Estate (with Peets) Wyomissing, Pennsylvania 1917
Herman Pabst Estate (with Peets) White Fish Bay, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1917
L.R. Smith Estate (with Peets) Lake Michigan, Wisconsin 1919
Myron T. MacLaren Estate Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1919
Washiington Highlands Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1919
Wyomissing Park Subdivision Reading, Pennsylvania
Theodore Wirth [1863-1949] Public Rose Garden Minneapolis, Minnesota c.1906
Elisabeth Rose Garden Hartford, Connecticut
Armory Garden Minneapolis, Minnesota
Frederick Nussbaumer [1850-1935] Como Park St. Paul, Minnesota 1878
Summit Avenue St. Paul, Minnesota
Indian Mound Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Phalen Park St. Paul, Minnesota
River Boulevard St. Paul, Minnesota
Crown Hill Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Lexington Parkway St. Paul, Minnesota
Chereokee Heights Boulevard St. Paul, Minnesota
Minnesota Capitol Grounds Approach St. Paul, Minnesota
Johnson Parkway St. Paul, Minnesota
Kenwood Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Dunning Field St. Paul, Minnesota
Linwood Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Wheelock Park St. Paul, Minnesota 1909
Hidden Falls Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Cherokee Highlands Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Langford Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Midway Park St. Paul, Minnesota 1901
Harriet Island St. Paul, Minnesota
Mississippi River Boulevard St. Paul, Minnesota
Summit Lookout Park St. Paul, Minnesota 1900
Point of View Park St. Paul, Minnesota 1891
Merriam Terrace park St. Paul, Minnesota
Central Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Lafayette Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Lake Iris Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Irvvine Park St. Paul, Minnesota
Adolph Jaenicke [1860-1948] Jaenicke Gardens in Swinney Park Fort Wayne, Indiana
Rose Garden in Lakeside Park Fort Wayne, Indiana
Charles H.W. Straker [1826-1900] Aspen Grove Cemetery Addition (with Steyh) Burlington, Iowa
Snake Alley Park (with Steyh) Burlington, Iowa
Crapo Park Burlington, Iowa
North Hill Park Burlington, Iowa
William Steyh [1845-1918] State Hospital for the Insane Mt. Pleasant, Iowa 1871
Cemetery Centerville, Iowa 1897
Jerome Bock [1822-1906] Nealley Brothers and Bock Nursery Burlington, Iowa
Bock Residence Burlington, Iowa
Anton Reinisch [1848-1929] Edgewood Park Topeka, Kansas 1913
Sanitorium Park Topeka, Kansas 1914
Ripley Park Topeka, Kansas 1918
Central Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Chesney Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Children's Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
City Park Topeka, Kansas
East Lawn Park Topeka, Kansas
Euclid Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Gage Park Topeka, Kansas
Garfield Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Holiday Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Hunton Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Lakewood Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Willow Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
West Lawn Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Washburn Park Topeka, Kansas 1922
Mount Hope Cemetery Topeka, Kansas
Ottawa University Campus Plan Ottawa, Kansas 1908
J.J. Locke Locke Nursery New Braunfels, Texas
Harry Landa Estate, now Landa Park New Braunfels, Texas
J. F. Leyendecker Pearfield Nursery Frelsburg, Texas 1876
F. Jacob Rothhaas Allen Estate Houston, Texas 1844
L.D. Folse Houston Heights Boulevard Houston, Texas
Reinhold Schuetze [1860-1909] Fairmount Cemetery Denver, Colorado 1890
Colorado State Capitol Grounds Denver, Colorado 1890, 1895
City Park Denver, Colorado 1891
East Eighteenth Avenue Denver, Colorado
Cheesman Park Denver, Colorado
Washington Park Denver, Colorado
Chaffee Park Denver, Colorado 1894
Platte Park Denver, Colorado 1896
Highland Park Denver, Colorado 1899

Frederick Von Holdt [1861-1935] Greenwood Cemetery Denver, Colorado 1893
Victor Siegel [1867-?] Columbia Gardens Butte, Montana 1899
Jacob Michon [1856-1936] University of Nevada Reno, Nevada
Jacob Schramm Schramsberg Estate Calistoga, California
Franz Phillip Hosp [1853-1936] White Park Cactus Garden Riverside, California c.1908
Victoria Avenue Riverside, California 1892
Hamlet Philphot Estate Riverside, California 1892
Priestley Hall Riverside, California 1889
Raeburn Place Riverside, California 1897
Rumsey Estate, Alta Cresta Rancho Riverside, California 1901
Fundenburg-Bliss Estate Riverside, California
La Atalaya Riverside, California
Caňon Crest Riverside, California
Hugo Lachenicht [?-?] Sutro Estate San Francisco, California
William Frederick Poppey [1820-1860] Hudson River State Hospital (with Olmsted) Poughkeepsie, New York
George Hansen [1863-1908] Berkeley Terminus Berkeley, California 1876
University of California Campus (partial) Berkeley, California 1897
Edward Eric Walther [1892-1959] Strybing Botanical Gardens (with McLaren) San Francisco, California 1926
Oscar Prager [1876-1960] Lake Park Oakland, California
Merritt Park Oakland, California
Johann George Seupelt [1877-1961] Hillcrest Park Fullerton, California
Amerige Park Fullerton, California
Wilshire Avenue School Fullerton, California 1914
Street Tree Plantings Fullerton, California 1918
Montebello City Park Fullerton, California
Whittier College Fullerton, California
La Habra Women's Club Fullerton, California
Fullerton Hospital Fullerton, California
Spokane Cathedral Spokane, Washington
William Hertrich [1878-1966] Huntington Arboretum San Marino, California
Paul Thiene [1880-1971] Mrs. John L. Severance Estate Pasadena, California
Edward Otto Schwagerl [1842-1910] St. Louis University Master Plan St. Louis, Missouri 1872
Riverside Cemetery Cleveland, Ohio
Woodlawn Cemetery Toledo, Ohio
Riverview Cemetery Portland, Oregon 1879
Wright Park Tacoma, Washington
Point Defiance Park Tacoma, Washington
Kinnear Park Seattle, Washington 1892-1894
Denny Park Seattle, Washington 1894-1895
Seattle Park System Master Plan Seattle, Washington 1892
Mount Baker Park Addition Seattle, Washington 1906-1907
Mount Baker Park Seattle, Washington
Grand Boulevard Seattle, Washington
University Heights Addition Seattle, Washington 1899
University Place Tacoma, Washington
Jacob Umlauff [1871-1950] Leschi Park Seattle, Washington c. 1889
Madison Park Seattle, Washington
E. Charles Balzer [1877-1953] Manito Park Spokane, Washington
William Hillebrand [?-1886] Foster Botanical Gardens Honolulu, Hawaii c.1851