Frederick Law Olmstead

Perhaps more than any other person, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) affected the way America looks. He is best known as the creator of major urban parks, but across the nation, from the green spaces that help define our towns and cities, to suburban life, to protected wilderness areas, he left the imprint of his fertile mind and boundless energy. Out of his deep love for the land and his social commitment he fathered the profession of landscape architecture in America. Olmsted's unique contributions stemmed in part from the conjunction of strongly felt personal values and the needs of a young nation. America was experiencing unprecedented growth in the mid-19th century, making the transition from a rural people to a complex urban society. City life became more stressful as the crowds grew, the pace quickened, and the countryside was pushed into the distance. Olmsted and others saw the need for preserving green and open spaces where people could escape city pressures, places that nourished body and spirit. His intuitive understanding of the historical changes he was living through and his rare combination of idealism, artistry, intelligence, and practical knowledge enabled him to help soften the shocks of industrialization. Unable to separate his love and respect for the land from his belief in democracy, Olmsted saw parks as bastions of the democratic ideals of community and equality. He confronted a period of rapid mechanization and unabashed materialism with a natural sensibility and the old Jeffersonian virtues of restraint and rural simplicity, values still represented in his parks. Olmsted was a true Renaissance Man whose many interests and ceaseless flow of ideas led him into experimental farming, writing and publishing, public health administration, preservation, and urban and regional planning. With other reformers, he pushed for protection of the Yosemite Valley. His 1864 report on the park was the first systematic justification for public protection of natural areas, emphasizing the duty of a democratic society to ensure that the "body of the people" have access to natural beauty.

In what he created and what he preserved for the future, Olmsted's legacy is incalculable. The informal natural setting he made popular characterizes the American landscape. Beyond the dozens of city and state parks enjoyed by millions of people, Olmsted and his firm set the standard for hospital and institutional grounds, campuses, zoos, railway stations, parkways, private estates, and residential subdivisions across the country. Olmsted's principles of democratic expansion and public access still guide and inspire urban planners. From the broadest concepts to the smallest details of his profession, the sign of Olmsted's hand is everywhere in our lives. Although Olmsted had no formal design training, he displayed a genius for creating landscapes both practical and beautiful. Ordinary, even desolate, spaces were often transformed into lush wildernesses and meadows complete with lakes, rustic furnishings and an intricate system of paths and drives. All this was accomplished under Olmsted's direction with such skill and respect for nature that the viewer was frequently unaware of the metamorphosis which had taken place or of the idea behind the design.

Olmsted moved to Fairsted, his Brookline estate, in 1883 at the height of a long and active career. He was 60 years old and eager to settle with wife and children into his first permanent home. The surrounding neighborhood had once been described as "a kind of landscape garden." At Fairsted, Olmsted was able to carve out a small piece of that garden, perfecting those design principles and ideas for which he had become famous.Nearly 200 different varieties of trees, shrubs and ground covers were planted on the grounds of Fairsted in order to create areas distinct in style and scenery. In 1886, a Chicago journalist took note of the property "In no Portion of the grounds is there any display of magnificence. Every shaded walk and every rocky nook shows but a careful oversight of nature's own simple ways. It is a bit of nature's magnificence, and human hands by seeking to embellish it with hothouse plants and marble figures and fountains of bronze cannot improve it."

Fairstead promised the "ideal suburban lifestyle," combining the social and cultural advantages of the city with the restful and peaceful qualities of the country. The landscape has changed since Olmsted's death in 1903 and is today being restored by the National Park Service to most closely reflect the late 1920's-a period with adequate documentation and one that marks the peak of the Olmsted design work. Dense planting of trees and an irregular "wave" of shrubs border the lawn at Fairsted, lending privacy to the setting while suggesting mystery and depth within. Spaciousness, another of Olmsted's design principles, is achieved by using various shadings of green, indefinite boundaries, and a delicate interplay of light and color. A single elm, or clump of elms, was often planted on an Olmsted meadow landscape - a personal signature of the designer. It is easy to imagine Olmsted and his family admiring the shape and majesty of the Fairsted ELM from within the pleasant confines of their CONSERVATORY or "out-of-door apartment." This spectacular tree is a focal point for the contemplation of scenery yet does not draw attention from the landscape as a whole - something which might be true of a manmade monument.

Olmsted's true genius can be found in both his artistic skill and his ability to touch the heart and mind of the viewer. In describing his own response to beautiful scenery, Olmsted wrote: "Gradually and silently, the charm overcomes us; we know not exactly where or how.'

The landscape of Fairsted, like the many others created by Olmsted, is a special place in which to observe, escape, unwind, and imagine.

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