Landscapes Ahead Of His Time: Celebrating 200 Years Of Frederick Law Olmsted

“So long as considerations of utility are neglected or overridden by considerations of ornament, there will be no true Art.” – Frederick Law Olmsted

More often than not, Frederick Law Olmsted’s work is hidden in plain sight — unless you know where to look, and what exactly you’re looking for. For the father of American landscape architecture, who is most famously known for his creation of Central Park, it’s all about “The Seven S’s.”

His set of design principals starts with scenery, which gives an enhanced sense of space, indefinite boundaries and a constant opening of new views, avoiding hard-edge and specimen planting. Next is suitability — or respecting the “genius of the place,” as he called it — style and subordination, in an effort to create unified compositions. He used separation of space to direct movement through a landscape, sanitation to promote both the physical and mental health of visitors, as well as a provision for drainage and other engineering considerations, and, lastly, service — in seeking to meet fundamental social and psychological needs.

All of his projects, which ticked into the thousands, abide by these guidelines — including those on the East End, which Anne Moore Hutton couldn’t help but notice while recently driving through Southampton.

“I was putting on my Olmsted-vision glasses. I thought, ‘My God, I wonder if the person who designed this neighborhood was conscious of Olmsted or not,’” she said, adding, “Everywhere I turned in this neighborhood, I would see a vista and I would see beautiful plantings. And I thought, whether the designer was conscious of Olmsted or not, it was there.”

This year, in celebration of Olmsted’s 200th birthday, the Westhampton Garden Club — where Hutton is the corresponding secretary, historian and archivist — has joined the “Olmsted 200” initiative, which will commemorate his life and legacy with events across the country. This summer, she plans to give talks and curate exhibits at libraries in Westhampton Beach, Quogue, Montauk and Shoreham, she said, while Roxane Zimmer, community horticulturist at Cornell Cooperative Extension, will present “A Walk in Olmsted Parks,” a Zoom talk on Thursday in partnership with Hampton Library in Bridgehampton.

And while the events and activities will educate the community about Olmsted’s contributions to landscape architecture — and his rise within the field — it wasn’t his calling until later in life.

“He enlightened the American public about how precious this natural resource was and how we must conserve it going into the future,” Hutton said. “You cannot have unplanned expansion; you have to make a space for nature.”

Born in 1822 in Hartford, Connecticut, Olmsted developed an early love of travel during regular trips with his father through the countryside, though the same could not be said for his love of formal education. He was predominantly taught by ministers and briefly attended Yale University, until sickness caused him to withdraw after his first semester.

And so, for the next two decades, he gathered experiences that helped shape his eventual landscape design aesthetic — from a year-long voyage in the China Trade and farming on Staten Island to reporting for the New York Daily Times and taking a six-month walking tour that changed his life. There, in Liverpool’s Birkenhead Park, he decided that public park access should be an American right.

“Olmsted traveled to Europe and became very interested in both French and British gardens,” Hutton said. “He came back to the States and he started mentally rearranging some of this nature along some of the prevailing ideas in, particularly, Britain at the time.

“He was interested in creating a nature that was the best that it could be,” she continued. “He was interested in designing nature to enhance it — in other words, providing vistas and the distance and paths that you could wander through. But above all, he was interested in preserving nature.”

In 1857, just a few months after Olmsted was hired as superintendent of Central Park, a rising young architect from England named Calvert Vaux asked him to partner on an entry for its design competition. Together, they beat 32 competitors with their Greensward Plan, which included unique transverse roads and a path system that subtly directed people’s movements — serving as a testing ground for the principles that would later define Olmsted’s work and characterize some of the nation’s most cherished public spaces.

The landscape designer and his firm, which his sons carried on until 1980, designed approximately 6,000 projects spanning from coast to coast, from Prospect Park in Brooklyn to North Carolina’s Biltmore Estate to the master scheme for Stanford University in California. Closer to home, Olmsted designs dot the East End — among them the site plan for a 100-acre property in Montauk that was once home to seven homes by McKim, Mead & White, which would become known as the “Seven Sisters.”

Olmsted also wrote extensively about the importance of protecting nature and the good that it can bring to people. In 1863, he moved to California to manage the Mariposa Estate and gold mines, just miles from Yosemite, which had just been granted to the state by the federal government.

As he watched private commercial interests threaten its future, he headed a commission overseeing the Yosemite reservation and released a report two years later — laying the foundation for the national park system. In fact, 13 years after Olmsted’s death in 1903, his son took up the charge, helping draft legislation to create it.

“He was totally devoted to nature,” Hutton said. “One of his big accomplishments was bringing the natural world to the attention of Americans.”

Vastly ahead of his time, Olmsted understood the psychological benefits of outdoors spaces more than most — and his vision has only become more prescient. Climate change has shoved mass disregard for the environment under a microscope, juxtaposed against a heightened interest in nature during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cooped-up New Yorkers, for example, have sought refuge and solace in Olmsted-designed Central Park, and many outdoor spaces have noticed an uptick in visitors.

“It’s been a lifesaver, quite literally, for many people,” Hutton said.

As indoor gatherings moved outdoors for social distancing, some studies suggest that Americans now appreciate nature more than before the pandemic.

“On a personal note, I have a son in Brooklyn and a son in Manhattan, I have grandchildren, and the way we met during a pandemic was in the parks,” said Melissa Morgan Nelson, president of Westhampton Garden Club. “I was talking to someone out here in Quogue and they are at Central Park all the time. She sent me pictures. She said, ‘Everywhere I look, there’s this perfect vista.’”

“And that’s her respite,” she added — further proof that, even 200 years later, Olmsted’s ideas and projects live on with us.

“That’s what Olmsted 200 is all about,” Hutton said. “It’s about Olmsted himself, of course, but it’s much more about preserving his legacy and the environment and conservation, preservation going forward.”

For more information on “Olmsted 200” and a list of local events, visit olmsted200.org.