Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. and Jr.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957), who designed 2 of the 3 parks in this system and the Parkway that was created to connect them, was the preeminent American landscape architect of the first half of the twentieth century. His father, Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. (1822-1903), was the preeminent American landscape architect of the second half the nineteenth century.

Among other accomplishments, the father designed or co-designed Central Park, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Boston’s Emerald Necklace System, the country’s first parks and parkway system, in Buffalo, and parks across the country; he also designed the landscape for the renowned Biltmore Estate in Ashville, North Carolina, between 1888 and 1895, and the celebrated Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892, sometimes referred to as the “White City” exposition. The elder Olmsted did more than perhaps any other person to define what an American urban park should look like and to establish the notion that in order to be considered a first-rate, progressive city, you needed to have a park like the ones he designed—or better yet, a whole system of them.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., was a member of the Save the Redwoods League Council for nearly 30 years and played a significant role in saving the California Giant Redwoods.

Olmsted, Jr., served as an apprentice and helper to his father on the Biltmore and White City projects while still a student at Harvard. Soon after he graduated in 1894, his father retired, and Olmsted, Jr., went into partnership with his elder brother, John Charles Olmsted, to create Olmsted Brothers, which became the country’s leading landscape architecture firm for over a century. Olmsted, Jr., soon inherited his father’s mantle as the leading figure in his field. Among other accomplishments were the following:

• founding member of Harvard’s landscape architecture, the world’s first such program;
• member of two federal commissions that reshaped much of the center of Washington, DC; he also devised the landscape design for the White House grounds, the Jefferson Memorial, and the National Mall;
• led efforts to create the National Parks Service in 1916 and authored the mission statement embedded in the federal law that created it;
• helped to enhance or establish several National Parks, including Yosemite, Acadia, and Everglades, and played a key role in saving the giant redwood trees;
• designed suburban-style neighborhoods, notably Forest Hills Gardens in Queens and Palos Verdes in Los Angeles, as well as 5 in Utica and 1 in Utica’s nearby suburban community of New Hartford.

The Olmsted family park building aesthetic centered on working with or accentuating

the natural contours of the land, hilltop viewing areas offering inspirational vistas, broad meadow-like lawns evocative of the countryside, beautiful water features like ponds, naturalistic plantings (as distinct from beds of showy exotic flowers), minimal buildings, use of rough stone and boulders as construction material, and creating the overall illusion that an intentionally landscaped space was the work of nature.

The blueprint Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., devised for the White House grounds at the invitation of Franklin D. Roosevelt.  This plan is still used today.

Among Utica’s parks, Roscoe Conkling best exemplifies this approach to park design; Frederick T. Proctor Park, the last of his Utica parks commissions, incorporated more formal park design features, notably the iconic “Lily Pond,” and some colorful plantings, and this was done to satisfy the desires of his patron, Thomas R. Proctor, who was an admirer of European formal parks despite his years of collaboration with Olmsted on Conkling Park and Utica’s Parkway.

The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, still widely celebrated in architectural and cultural history.  Olmsted, Sr., did the landscape design, Olmsted, Jr., assisted him on this project, and MacMonnies, designed the fountain at the far end of this scene and the Swan Memorial Fountain on Utica’s Parkway.

The Biltmore Estate in Ashville, North Carolina, one of Olmsted, Sr.’s last and grandest projects. Olmsted Jr. served as his father’s apprentice on this project during one of his summer vacations from Harvard.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., around the time he was still active on projects in Utica.

Map of Proctor Boulevard, the second real estate development project Olmsted designed in Utica.  This illustrates how Olmsted design favored curvilinear roads that worked with, rather than overrode, the natural contours of the land.  Although Olmsted Brothers partner E.C. Whiting took the lead on later real estate development projects in Utica, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., was heavily involved in the design of Proctor Boulevard, which was the premier prestige project of local real estate developer Hugh R. Jones.

The cover of a prospectus for Utica’s Olmsted-designed Proctor Boulevard development project (circa 1914).

Ridgewood, a development at the southernmost edges of Utica, launched in 1927, was the last major real estate development design project carried out by Olmsted Brothers in Utica.  A few years later, as a consequence of the Great Depression, a quarter century of almost continuous activity by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Olmsted Brothers, which remade much of Utica, came to an end.