charles eliot, landscape architect: an introduction to his...
TRANSCRIPT
Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect:An Introduction to His Life and Work
Keith N. Morgan
Just five days after Charles Eliot died in 1897 at the age of 37, Charles SpragueSargent published his obituary in Garden and Forest, his weekly journal. As an
apprentice to Frederick Law Olmsted, Eliot had prepared planting plans for theArnold Arboretum, and thereafter Sargent followed his career, first in solo prac-tice and later as partner to Olmsted. Sargent wrote, "in a great variety of workhe has proved himself one of the most accomplished of designers. He had anintense appreciation of nature, but he always kept up his student habits, exam-
ining the outdoor world critically, and reasoning upon what he saw to establish
principles which could be applied in practice."Sargent also knew Eliot as a frequent contributor to Garden and Forest; he
would be missed for his "gift of expression in a singularly effective style ... his
writings embody such an amount of sound doctrine, effectively stated, thatone regrets that he has not left more of this kind of work behind him.... it is no
exaggeration to say that his untimely death is an almost irreparable loss to ruralart in America...."
In 1902 Eliot’s father, President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard University,compiled and annotated the son’s writings, which he published as Charles Eliot,
Landscape Architect. Nearly a century later, it remains one of our most valuablecollections of landscape writing and a necessary resource for those interested inthe history of landscape architecture or city and regional planning. The follow-
ing essay is excerpted from the introduction to a new edition.
ecently returned to Boston from a year-long study tour of Europe, the young-L ~~ Charles Eliot set up a landscape architec-
ture practice on Park Street in December 1886.Over the next decade he would make an indel-ible mark on the physical form of the metropoli-tan region and beyond. In Eliot’s solo practice,and later as a partner in Olmsted, Olmsted andEliot, he developed many fine public parks and
private estates. He became one of the country’smost prolific and influential landscape criticsand historians, and provided the creative andpolitical impetus for the Trustees of PublicReservations, the first statewide preservationand conservation organization in the countryand the precursor to Britain’s National Trust.
Finally, and most importantly, Eliot directed theearly development of the Boston Metropolitan
Five images of Charles Eliot (1859-1897), clockmse from top left, c. 1863; c. 1869; Harvard College graduationphotograph, 1882; at age 35; at center, age 37. Courtesy of Alexander Y. Gomansky.
Park System, one of the first and most success-ful American experiments in regional landscapeplanning. It is astounding that all this wasaccomplished in less than eleven years. Eliot’sdeath from spinal meningitis in 1897, at the ageof thirty-seven, robbed the country of one of itsmost talented landscape architects ever.
Early YearsWhen Charles Eliot was born in 1859, his fatherwas a professor of mathematics and chemistryat Harvard College. His mother, Ellen PeabodyEliot, was an amateur artist and lover of nature.She died when he was ten years old. Charles hadone younger brother, Samuel Atkins Eliot, whobecame an important Unitarian minister,presiding over the Arlington Street Church,Boston, and president of the Unitarian Associa-tion. The Eliots’ home life was characterized bycultural and social prestige and by intellectualstimulation.
In 1863, after losing a promotion battle atHarvard, Eliot senior took his family abroad sothat he could study in French and German labo-ratories. From August of that year, when youngCharles was three, through the summer of 1865,the family traveled between Paris, London,Heidelberg, Marberg, Vienna, Berlin, Switzer-land, and Italy. Late in 1864 Ellen Eliot wrote toher mother of the family’s life abroad:
I keep regular school for Charly every morning& it is a pleasure & an interest to him & to me.He learns readily & enjoys it highly-I reallysometimes fear the chicks may be spoiled by theentire devotion of their parents to them. Theyare necessarily with me all day & Charly sewswith me & studies with me & paints with meand they generally walk with me, and it is rarelythat I can catch Charles-Every day C[harles]gives Charly a regular gymnastic exercise-thechild has improved much m the use of his arms& legs.2The exercises were intended to counteract the
lingering effects of a bout of typhoid fever thatlittle Charles had suffered during the winter of1863-1864. He was ill for more than a year but
eventually recovered fully.3An invitation to teach chemistry at the Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology brought thesenior Eliot and his family back to Cambridge in
Ellen Peabody Ehot and her sons, Samuel AtkinsEhot and (standmg) Charles Eliot.
the fall of 1865, but his wife’s lung and throatcongestion prompted them to return to Europein June 1867 through the following June. Mrs.Eliot died a year later.
Young Charles had loved learning at hismother’s knee, but he found formal educationonerous. In 1876 he wrote of the school heattended between ages twelve and sixteen: "To
my dismay was sent to Kendall’s School, AppianWay! ... Disliked most of the boys but likedKendall. Often dissolved in tears even in school-
room ; much to my despair."4 Fortunately, hiseducation was supplemented by drawing les-sons from Charles H. Moore, which he liked.He made lifelong friends at Kendall’s, however,especially Roland Thaxter and John H. Storer,and his preparation there helped him pass theentrance examination for Harvard College inJune 1877.
Charles was a fragile boy, diffident andoften given to melancholic moods, while Sam
5
Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect: A Father’s Life of His SonThis extraordinary volume, 770 pages inlength, is the record of a developing land-scape philosophy, the story of a remarkablecareer, and a landmark in American writingon landscape architecture. Originally pub-lished m 1902 and reprinted in 1999, it is arare example of filial biography, the story ofa son’s life by his father. Charles’s father,President Charles W. Eliot of Harvard Uni-versity, did not sign the title page because heconsidered his role to be that of editor andorganizer of his son’s writings and record.
Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect is
really three books intertwined. The firstis an intimate life story, told as a loving trib-ute by a devoted father. The second is a spe-cies of superb travel literature, written byyoung Charles from the perspective of alandscape analyst. The third is an annotated,chronological anthology of professional cor-respondence and public reports. PresidentEliot’s format places these elements in thecontext of his understanding of his son’s lifeand career.While his name does not appear on the
title page, there is no question of PresidentEliot’s role as helmsman on this journey ofreconstruction. He not only wrote butfinanced the publication of this book. Forthe publisher’s spring catalogue of 1902, thesenior Eliot provided Houghton Mifflin witha statement of the contents and purposes ofthe volume:
It describes (1) the short but fruitful life of awell-born and well-trained Amencan; (2)how he got his trammg as landscape archi-tect ; (3) the enjoyment of landscape at homeand in travel; (4) the physical features of en-joyable landscape; (5) the landscape art-what it can do, and what it should aim to do;(6) the means of promoting and carrymg onpublic landscape works; and (7) as illustra-tions of (6) the methods and achievements ofthe Metropolitan Park Commission (Boston)to which he was landscape advisor during itsfirst five years.
Charles W Eliot (1838-1926)
The things are set forth, not m the aboveorder but in the chronological sequence ofCharles Eliot’s experiences and labors. I onlyedit the volume; it is m the main written byCharles Eliot himself.’
The elder Eliot probably began to considerthe project in the days immediately follow-ing his son’s death. In April of 1897 he toldone friend, "I am examining his letters andpapers, and I am filled with wonder at whathe accomplished in the ten years of profes-sional life.... In the natural course of eventsI should have died without ever havingappreciated his influence. His death hasshown it to me. "2
In 1902 no precedent existed for a mono-graph on an American landscape architect.Frederick Law Olmsted’s biography was yetto be written, and no other member of thisyoung profession, or American landscapearchitecture as a field, had yet attractedbook-length analysis. The rich archival col-lections that survive from both father andson document the multiple-year campaignby President Eliot to assemble the reports,
The book’s frontispiece-Charles Ehot,landscape architect, at age 33.
correspondence, and diaries from which hedrew this manuscript. The speed at whichthe book was written and published reflectsits author’s determination, especially givenhis other responsibilities as president ofHarvard.The father presented a very different biog-
raphy from the one his son would havewritten about himself. By today’s standards,the book is hagiographic; Eliot emerges asthe perfect model for the young profession,receiving credit for ideas and projects thatwere actually the work of many minds andhands. The overstatement of Eliot’s achieve-ments is particularly evident in the descrip-
’ tion of his role at the Metropolitan ParkCommission. President Eliot presents hisson as the sole creator, but it is clear that the
journalist Sylvester Baxter played a seminalrole in conceiving of the metropolitan Bos-ton ideal. 3
Also, President Eliot’s narrative empha-sizes the importance of heredity and theinfluential background from which his sonhad emerged. The Eliots belonged to whatOliver Wendell Holmes had dubbed "theBrahmin caste of Boston." "In their eyes," "
observed Charles senior’s biographer, "theirwealth obliged them to strive for personalachievement and social usefulness. "4 So weare treated to glimpses of many family mem-bers including President Eliot’s first wife andyoung Charles’s mother, Ellen PeabodyEliot. Thus the book is an intimate familyportrait. Not all of the nearly 750 pages oftext will prove interesting to a modernreader. For example, the chapter on the Met-ropolitan Park Commission projects of 1894is excessively detailed, of concern only tothose thoroughly familiar with the topogra-phy of the Boston area parks. But certain sec-tions of the text are true gems of landscapeliterature. Anyone interested in the historyof landscape architecture, regional planning,or city planning will want to read them.Despite the book’s being privately pro-
duced and only moderately distributed,it has become a classic in the literatureof American landscape architecture andcity planning, just as President Eliot hadhoped that the example of his son’s briefcareer would be a standard and a model forthe profession.
Notes
1 Charles W. Eliot to pubhsher, 15 December 1901,Houghton Mifflin Collection, Houghton Library,Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
2 Charles W. Eliot to D. C. Gilman, 23 April 1897,quoted in Henry James, Charles W Ehot,President of Harvard University, 1869-1909(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), 91-92.
3 Baxter certamly wrote about the idea of a
metropolitan park system before Ehot, but thelandscape architect had been thinking aboutissues of regional plannmg for many years andwould prove to have the staying power and
political acumen necessary to make it possible toreahze Baxter’s dream. Sylvester Baxter, GreaterBoston’ A Study for a Federated Metropolis(Boston, 1891), and "Greater Boston’s Metro-politan Park System," Boston EveningTranscript, Part 5, 29 September 1923, p. 8.
4 Hugh Hawkms, Between Harvard and AmericaThe Educational Leadership of Charles W. Eliot(New York: Oxford Umversity Press, 1972), 3.
7
resembled his father. As President Eliot wrote:"His father and brother had very different
temperaments from his. They were sanguine,confident, content with present action, andlittle given to contemplation of either thepast or the future; Charles was reticent, self-distrustful, speculative, and dissatisfied withhis actual work, though faithful and patient instudies which did not interest him or open tohim intellectual pleasures.s Charles Eliot seemsto have inherited his mother’s talents and inter-ests in art and nature. Unfortunately, her deathin 1869 coincided with his father’s appointmentto the presidency of Harvard College: the emo-tional gulf widened between the busy father andhis awkward, shy elder son.When his father remarried in 1877, the young
man resented the intrusion of a stepmother.He recorded his reactions to a new union in his
diary: "Heard rumors of father’s wooing a MissHopkinson and one day after Sam had gone Eastwas told by father of his engagement."6 AfterPresident Eliot married Grace Mellen
Hopkinson m October, Charles reported that he"tried hard to be pleasant, but felt awkward and’queer’." The distance between father and son
continued to grow. Charles secretly complainedthat he was "distressed by father never tellingSam & me of his plans & doings as he once did.Also much annoyed by many things at’home’."’Nonetheless, within a few years it was his
stepmother who became an anchor m his emo-tional life.
President Eliot hoped to improve hisfirstborn’s sense of self and increase his physicalstrength by involving him in the "strenuouslife," camping and sailing along the coast ofNew England. Young Charles enjoyed these rig-orous forays into nature. During the summers ofhis second and third years at Harvard, he orga-nized and led a small band of classmates knownas the Champlain Society in scientific explora-tion of Mount Desert Island in Maine. LikeTheodore Roosevelt, his near-contemporary atHarvard, young Charles Eliot embraced lifein the out-of-doors, but he was inspired prima-rily by a delight in viewing nature.8 PresidentEliot had consistently reinforced the benefitsof physical activity and knowledge of the
wilderness, emphasizmg this experience asa way of counteracting his elder son’s melan-cholic withdrawals.
Begmning m 1871, Charles, his father and brother, and the family of his uncle pursued the open-air hfe on CalfIsland, near Mount Desert, Mame. With one exception, they contmued to camp and yacht there every summerthrough 1878. Charles made this drawmg of the camp in 1875.
8 L
Map and title page of Charles Eliot’s journal of his trip through SouthCarolina, Georgia, and Flonda with his aunt, 1874.
The Education of a Landscape ArchitectCharles Eliot’s preparation for a career in land-scape architecture began long before his Harvardyears. During the family’s travels in Europe, hisparents showed him the beauties of many natu-ral and manmade landscapes. After the death ofhis mother, his father and other family mem-bers continued this tradition. In the summer of1871 the Eliots spent their first summer onMount Desert, and the following year theyacquired a forty-three-and-a-half-foot sloop, TheSunshme. Maine would remain a central and
important part of Charles Eliot’s life thereafter.In spring 1874 Charles, then fourteen, accom-
panied his aunt Anna Peabody on a trip throughSouth Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. A note-book in which he recorded his impressionsof the landscape, people, and local customsprovides us early evidence of his response tolandscapes. At this time he was sketching fre-quently, exhibiting the natural talent thatwould later encourage him to consider a careerin landscape architecture.
In shaping his education, Charles had theadvantage (or disadvantage) of being the son ofone of the era’s major educational reformers.Parent and child frequently discussed CharlesEliot’s future vocation, although it was
Charles’s own decision to pursue a career in
landscape architecture. Since no professionalprograms existed at the time, the two men
together devised a postgraduatecourse of study at Harvard’sBussey Institute, a professionalapprenticeship with FrederickLaw Olmsted, and a periodof professional travel in theUnited States and abroad.
"You See I Am a Wanderer"
Charles Eliot was a landscapewanderer, constant but atten-tive, and a connoisseur of
landscape forms.9 While stilla young teenager, he beganin 1875 to take a series of walk-
ing tours, often tied to publictransportation routes, whichallowed him to visit naturalareas throughout the greater
Boston basin in a methodical manner. In his
diary for 1878, he provides a "Partial List ofSaturday Walks before 1878." Eliot would laterrecommend many of the sites as additions tothe metropolitan park system. He also meticu-lously recorded a short trip that he took withhis father in 1875, to a "small manufacturingvillage" (of which he drew a plan), where therewas "a very large woolen mill" and also "a tan-nery and a stream below the mill."’° Charles’spenchant for landscape description and analysiswas further nurtured by keeping the log forThe Sunshine.
During his thirteen-month tour of Englandand the Continent in 1885-1886, Eliot contin-ued to record scenery through detailed narra-tives and sketches. In a richly annotatedcollection of excerpts from his diaries and jour-nals, Eliot assesses the design, horticulture, andtopography of the sites on his self-generateditinerary and offers sharp opinions aboutthe defining characteristics of cultural land-scapes-admiring the Scandinavian country-side, expressing contempt for French landscapefashion and suspicion toward the "nabobry" ofthe aristocratic English landscape." Eliot oftenused his extensive knowledge of the NewEngland landscape as a touchstone, describingan island near Stockholm, for example, as
"roughly, wildly beautiful in a wholly NewEnglandish manner."’2
9
Two views of Antibes drawn by Charles Ehot, March 1886. From Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (1902).
Of all the private estates, public parks, andnatural sites that Eliot methodically visitedin Europe, he was most affected by the formerestate of Prince Hermann Puckler at Muskauin Silesia. In one of his last letters to Olmstedbefore returning in October 1887, Eliot effusedabout the lessons that Muskau could teach:
His park is probably the finest work of real land-scape gardening on a large scale that this centuryhas seen carried out m Europe. It is a work thathas made one very proud of the profession-forhere was a river valley m great part very barren,fringed by monstrous woods of p. sylvestris andin no way remarkable for beauty or interest-butnow one of the loveliest vales on earth-and fullto the brim, so to speak, of variety or pleasantchange, of quieting and often touching beauty. 13
In many ways, Muskau served as a prototypefor all that Charles Eliot would do in America.
Every element of the landscape-the pleasuregrounds near the Schloss, the village and thealum factory, the river valley and the surround-ing woodlands-was carefully "improved" withnative plants. Puckler presented Eliot with alasting lesson on how to capitalize on the inher-ent qualities of site and celebrate the ability ofman to enhance nature.
No landscape architect before Eliot had com-bined so thorough a grounding in the literatureof the profession with such close observation ofthe practice of landscape architecture. Eliot’scall slips from the British Library are evidenceof his voracious literary appetite and themethodical manner in which he read everythingon the topic in English, French, and Germanfrom the seventeenth century on.’4 Thus Eliotreturned to the United States with a umquelyprofound knowledge of the history of his profes-sion. In the December 1887 issue of Garden andForest, he included a recommended list of bookson landscape architecture, based on his readingsin Europe.
Eliot also actively pursued the individualswho could help him grow professionally.’S Hisjournals recount his critical reaction to many ofthe leading landscape gardeners and nurserymenof Europe. One of the most hospitable of hisEnglish contacts was James Bryce, with whomEliot stayed in both London and Oxford. Brycewas an avid mountameer, secretary of the Com-mons Preservation Society, and the author ofthe Scottish Mountains bill and other openspace legislation in Parliament. Thus, he couldshare with young Charles Eliot his direct
10
French trees and avenues drawn by Charles Ehot m and near 1’ams,1886 From Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (1902).
knowledge of efforts to legislate landscape pres-ervation in Bmtain. Eliot also visited the secre-tary of the Lake District Defense Society, CanonHardwicke D. Rawnsley, an activist who advo-cated protection of the Lake District, especiallyfrom the potential mtrusion of railroad linesand urban reservoirs. Later, he was one of thefounders of the National Trust for Places ofScenic and Natural Beauty in Great Britam.From their meeting, Eliot learned about land-
scape preservation strategies inEngland and was able to sharehis knowledge of parallel Ameri-can efforts. It could not havebeen a better preparation for thework that lay ahead.
"Mr. Olmsted’s Profession"
Charles Eliot inherited themantle of Frederick LawOlmsted Sr., who defined thepost-Civil War profession of
landscape architecture in theUnited States. After pursuingcareers as a farmer, journalist,publisher, and traveler, Olmstedhad established himself as the
country’s leading landscapearchitect with his 1858 designfor Central Park in New York
City. He moved his highly suc-cessful practice to Brookline,Massachusetts, in 1883. One ofOlmsted’s neighbors in that sub-urb was Charles Eliot’s uncle,the architect Robert Swain
Peabody. It was he who sug-gested Olmsted as a potentialrole model to the young man insearch of a vocation.’6 After aperiod of self-designed study atHarvard’s Bussey Institute, in1883 Eliot gladly accepted theinvitation to become the firstofficial unpaid apprentice in theOlmsted office."Olmsted soon recognized
Charles Eliot’s multiple talentsand encouraged their develop-ment. While Eliot was in Europe
in 1885-1886, he wrote frequently to Olmstedabout the sites he visited and people he met,many of them through his mentor. Olmstedresponded, "I have seen no such justly criticalnotes as yours on landscape architecture mat-ters from any traveler for a generation past. Youought to make it a part of your scheme to writefor the public, a little at a time if you please, butmethodically, systematically. It is part of yourprofessional duty to do so."’8 Eliot heeded
11 1
In 1885, as apprentice to Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Ehot worked on plantmg plans for the Arnold Arboretum Healso worked at the Arboretum, stakmg out shrub beds from plans he had helped to prepare. This photograph of thecollection was taken m May 1931.
Olmsted’s advice and became one of the most
productive and effective landscape critics of hisgeneration.
Gradually, the professional relationshipachieved more equal footing. While Eliot was inEurope, Olmsted asked him to return home andjoin the firm. Olmsted was currently developingplans for the Stanford University campus inCalifornia and was eager to capitalize on Eliot’sfresh knowledge of Mediterranean plant mate-rial and design. President Eliot’s opinion of theoffer was characteristically firm: "You can makean excursion to California whenever it is yourinterest to do so for $300 & I shall be happy topay for it. I see no inducement whatever in Mr.O’s offer of $50 a month. You had better start foryourself in my opinion.... My impression is infavor of refusal by cable-’Decline’ & by effu-sive letter."19 In the end, Eliot took his father’sadvice, finishing his trip as planned and settingup his own office on his return. Instead of work-
ing for Olmsted, Eliot asked his former mentorto provide a reference for an advertisementannouncing his new business.2oThree years later, Eliot asked Henry Codman,
who had followed him as an apprentice in theOlmsted office, to join his firm as a partner, butCodman declined. Then, in July 1889, in a letterto Olmsted, Eliot proposed yet another plan:My talk with Codman has led me to imagme apossible general umon of forces m which allthree of us young men [Ehot, Codman, and JohnCharles Olmsted] might serve as more or lessmdependent captams under you as general. Wecould perhaps have offices m N.Y. and Phila. aswell as m Boston and Brookhne ... and while weshould manage all small jobs ourselves weshould refer all weighty matters and all personswho distinctly desired your opinion to you?’
But his idea never materialized. Codman
accepted a position with Olmsted, and Eliotcontinued to pursue his mdependent practice
12
One of Hamburg’s Alster Basms, which served as Charles Ehot’s mspmation for his 1894 proposal for the improvement ofthe Charles River m Boston
until January 1893, when Codman suddenlydied from appendicitis while supervisingthe landscape development of the World’sColumbian Exposition in Chicago. Once again,Olmsted, especially eager for help with the Chi-cago Fair, begged Eliot to become a partner, notjust a junior employee; this time the youngerman saw a more dynamic role for himself andagreed. In March 1893, the office of Olmsted,Olmsted and Eliot was officially announced.By the time Eliot had joined the firm in 1893,
Olmsted’s health had begun to fail, and one ofthe burdens Eliot could take on for his elder
partner was the writing of reports and articles.Much of the younger man’s writings was castin his mold, including one article that defendedhis former mentor. Realizing that Olmsted’swork for the Boston Municipal Park Commis-sion was frequently attacked for its "unnatural-ness," Eliot responded with an article titled"The Gentle Art of Defeating Nature," in which
he stated his (and Olmsted’s) belief that land-scape architects must alter natural conditions tomeet the needs of the public.22On one occasion, Eliot actually wrote an
article that was published under Olmsted’sname. The senior Eliot states that "Parks, Park-ways, and Pleasure Grounds" in EngineeringMagazine was "a concise statement-withsome new illustrations-of doctrines which Mr.Olmsted had been teaching all his life. It wasprepared however by Charles ... Mr. Olmstedbeing unable at the time to write it himself."z3Eliot had thoroughly absorbed every lesson onlandscape aesthetics and professional practicethat Olmsted taught. In addition to the standardOlmsted agenda, the article includes new ideasthat Eliot was then pursuing and for which heuses new language-for instance, "reservationsof scenery," "Board of Trustees." II
As an ultimate indication of mentor-studentcloseness, Eliot was invited to draft an obituary
13
for Olmsted in 1896 (several years beforeOlmsted’s death). He submitted the draft "withgreat diffidence," he wrote in the accompanyingletter, having "been too near him to write itrightly." Eliot began the piece: "It is seldom thatthe death of one man removes a whole profes-sion, but, excepting for a few associates person-ally inspired by him, this is really what hashappened in the case of the death of FrederickLaw Olmsted. "24 Eliot was certainly one ofthose "associates personally inspired by him"and provided a rich and elegant account of hismentor’s life and work.From his apprenticeship days on, when Eliot
wrote to his family and friends about Olmsted,he expressed a mixture of both respect and criti-cism in his letters. He happily told his closefriend Roland Thaxter in October 1883 that hehad "become apprentice to the leading man inmy proposed profession-namely Mr. Fred. LawOlmsted ... the man who has had a hand inalmost every great Park work that has been
attempted in this country. "z5 But m six years ofprivate practice, Eliot had formed his own dis-tinct opinions and was highly critical of manythmgs that Olmsted did. Eliot also maintainedmany of his earlier, independent jobs-such aspositions on the Metropolitan Park and theCambridge Park commissions-atterhe joined the firm. Eliot was neitheran extension nor pale reflection of
Olmsted; he was his own man, facingimportant new issues in the professionof landscape architecture.Olmsted was delighted to have his
former apprentice in the firm and theadded income from major projects onwhich Charles was working. In an 1893letter to his partners, Olmsted effusedabout the importance of the work cur-rently in the office:Nothing else compares in importance tous with the Boston work, meaning theMetropolitan qmte equally with the citywork. The two together will be the mostimportant work m our profession now mhand anywhere m the world.... In yourprobable life-time, Muddy River, BlueHills, the Fells, Waverley Oaks, CharlesRiver, the Beaches will be points to datefrom in the history of American Land-
scape Architecture, as much as Central Park.They will be the opening of new chapters mthe art.26
All but the first of these landmark projectswere commissions that Eliot brought to thefirm.Within the Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot
office, Charles exerted a major influence, espe-cially among the younger members of the firm.Warren Manning worked closely with Eliot onthe analysis of the metropolitan reservations,learning a process of natural-condition data col-lection and systematic analysis that he woulduse frequently later in his practice.2’ ArthurShurcliff, who with Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.established the first academic program in land-
scape architecture at Harvard, wrote extensivelyabout the lessons he had learned from Eliot.28The poignant vacuum that Charles Eliot’s earlydeath left m the firm is hauntingly symbolizedby the photograph that Shurcliff took of Eliot’sdesk on the day he died.
Eliot’s Landscape Philosophy and Language .
Eliot envisioned a new type of public landscape ’-
and used a distinctive vocabulary to articulate anew set of objectives. Whereas Olmsted wroteabout green country parks, parkways, and pasto-
Charles Ehot’s desk at the offices of Olmsted, Olmsted c~J Ehot asphotographed by Arthur A. Shurcliff on the day he died.
14
Charles Elzot’s "scientific ’park system"’ for metropolitan Boston included reclaiming the rzverbanks andbeaches, which were occupied by tenements and industry. In 1896, word spread that the Metropolztan ParksCommission had "reserved" three miles of Revere Beach for the use of the publzc With warm weather,multitudes began to visit, as seen in the photograph at the top. On one Sunday in July the number mounted to45,000, convincmg the Commissioners that large-scale constructzons were needed to accomodate vzsztors.Charles Elzot spent the rest of that year prepanng plans.
By 1900, streets and railroads had been relocated, shanties and saloons razed, and sidewalk, dnveway,and promenade buzlt. Those constructzons can scarcely be seen m the photograph at bottom, taken dunng "thecarnival". for one week m August, local business people were permitted to use part of the beach for sports andamusements, including balloon ascenszons and dzvzng horses
15
ral retreats as places in which modern citydwellers could find spiritual replenishmentthrough passive contemplation of nature, Eliotdiscussed reservations, trusteeships, and rurallandscape preservation that would providesettings for active enjoyment of nature. In con-trast to Olmsted’s retreat into a private contem-plation of nature, Eliot compared sceneryor landscape to other advantages of urban cul-ture, especially books and art. While Olmsted’sparks were created through design, Eliot’s reser-vations were products of choice, preservation,and improvement.
Eliot used the word "reservation" often in hisarticles and lectures. Indeed, he even thoughtthat the Boston Metropolitan Park Commissionshould really be called the Metropolitan Reser-vations Commission.29 He realized that theterm "park" had a specific and limited meaningfor his contemporaries, so Eliot took a differentword-"scenery"-to distinguish his ideas fromcommon assumptions. He had three basic goals:to preserve scenery, make it accessible, andimprove it.3° By Eliot’s definition, scenery wasland that had been "resumed" or reclaimed forthe public benefit. Reservations, Eliot believed,should be "held in trust," and those who pre-served and improved scenery were therefore"trustees" of that heritage.3’ Eliot’s use of theterm "trustee" invoked a legal process by whichmdividuals were designated as the guardians oflandscape, as in the Trustees of Public Reserva-tions. It is interesting that he also referred topark users as "trustees." He was convinced that"ordinary people," as trustees, had the potentialto appreciate and the right to expect the meritsof public reservations.
Eliot’s highly effective and original landscapeideas were especially apparent in his work forthe Metropolitan Park Commission, where heenvisioned a new regional approach to planning.In his first letter to Charles Francis Adams,chairman of the temporary commission, Eliotoutlined the landscape types he wished to incor-porate into the system:
As I conceive it the scientific "park system"for a district such as ours would mclude
lst Space upon the Ocean front.
2nd As much as possible of the shores andislands of the Bay.
3rd The courses of the larger Tidal estuaries(above their commercial usefulness) because ofthe value of these courses as pleasant routes tothe heart of the City and to the Sea.
4th Two or three large areas of wild forest onthe outer rim of the inhabited area.
5th Numerous small squares in the midst ofdense populations.Local and private action can do as much underthe 5th head but the four others call loudly foraction by the whole metropolitan commumty.With your approval I shall make my study forthe Commission on these lines 3z
This broad scheme represented a larger land-scape analysis than had ever been attemptedin America.To explain these concepts and others, Eliot
invoked a landscape language that had not pre-viously been employed. His arena was thephysical world at large. In a lecture to a farmer’sassociation in New York State, he explainedthat he meant "by the term ’landscape’ the ~
"
visible surroundings of men’s lives on the sur-face of the earth." Eliot considered himself anarchitect and repeatedly referred to a definitionof architecture borrowed from the Englishsocialist and art critic William Morris: "Archi-
tecture, a great subject truly, for it embraces theconsideration of the whole of the external
world, for it means the moulding and the alter-ing to human needs the very face of the earth. "33
This broad environmental consciousness is
rooted in the lessons he drew from Prince
Puckler, a topic about which Eliot frequentlyboth spoke and wrote .34
Eliot’s proto-environmentalist viewpointgrew naturally out of his contact with the Tran-scendentalist writers of New England. RalphWaldo Emerson, for example, is frequentlyquoted in both Eliot’s commonplace book andin the selections his father incorporated in thebiography. An uneasy product of Unitarianism,Eliot had been attracted early to the Transcen-dentalist belief in nature as an allegory for thedivinity. In essence, however, Eliot practiced anapplied Transcendentalism, actively securing
16 .
for the general public the advantages of activeengagement with nature, not just urging its pas-sive contemplation.Onto this literary-philosophical base, Eliot
grafted other ideals. He was a democrat and anenvironmentalist, long before the term had beencoined. He wrote that reservations, parks, andparkways must "be placed, without regard tolocal pressure, solely with a view to securing thegreatest good of the greatest number," followingthe principles of English political philosopherJohn Stuart Mill. And he opposed commercialintrusion into this scenery of beauty; he arguedagainst the exploitation of the landscape withgiant advertising signs and proposed that tele-graph lines be sunk below ground to removeanother modern irritant from the reservations.His concern transcended the needs of his con-temporary generation. He wrote about hopes forimproved water quality in the Charles River andcelebrated the increase of "wild birds and ani-mals" that had resulted from improvement inthe Stony Brook Reservation.35 Recently, IanMcHarg, a leader in landscape architecture edu-cation, commented in his autobiography: "Ihave been described as the inventor of ecologi-cal planning, the mcorporation of natural sci-ence within the planning process. Yet CharlesEliot, son of Harvard’s president, a landscapearchitect at Harvard, preceded me by half acentury.... He invented a new and vastly morecomprehensive planning method than any pre-existing, but it was not emulated. "3~ McHargbelieved that his own education as a landscapearchitect at Harvard had been deficient becausethe school had forgotten the planning vision ofCharles Eliot in the 1890s.A persistent theme in Eliot’s public writings
and professional reports is the principle "whatwould be fair must be fit." In an article for Gar-den and Forest by that title, Eliot first warnedhis readers about the three types of landscapedesigners to avoid: commercial nurserymenwho would think only in terms of the plantsthey could sell, landscape gardeners who laidout everything in curving lines, and former stu-dents of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, whosaw garden design in lockstep geometry. Eliot’sdistance from these dominant trends reflectedhis sense that function, or "fitness," should be
the guiding principle of design. He was not aproponent of either side of the great debatebetween the natural and the formal style oflandscape design. In his review of Italian Gar-dens by Charles A. Platt, a leader of the formalgarden revival, Eliot was enthusiastic aboutthe lessons that the Renaissance garden couldteach but warned that the conditions of climate,topography, and needs of the client must all jus-tify this choice of landscape mode.3’ In his essay"Anglomania in Park Making," he similarlycautioned against the mindless popularity of theEnglish or natural landscape style as the onlycorrect manner for public park design. Eliot’sphilosophy resembles a landscape theory varia-tion on the theme of "form follows function"-the battle cry of the Chicago architect LouisSullivan at that time.38To achieve his broad aims for landscape
design preservation, Eliot lobbied ceaselesslythrough prolific letter writing, frequent publicspeaking, appearances before legislative com-mittees, and regular contributions to popularmagazines and professional journals. His majorwritten contribution to a philosophy of scenerypreservation and enhancement was his report,posthumously published in 1898, Vegetationand Scenery in the Metropolitan Reservationsof Boston. Although specific in its definitionof the basic types of landscapes found in theBoston metropolitan reservations and the appro-priate methods for their management and devel-opment, Eliot’s report has generic implicationsas well.One important message conveyed in the
report is that all of the landscapes of the metro-politan reservations are "artificial" in that theyhave been changed through human interactionwith them. Eliot wanted to counter the popularassumption that the reservations were "wild"and therefore should not be altered in any way."Before and after" drawings of specific sitesemphasized the importance of improving thescenery through careful analysis of natural sys-tems and well-conceived plans of action. Muchof this analysis had already been begun with thesurveys of geology, topography, and history ofuse in the reservations. The next step wouldhave been the development of general plans foreach of the reservations, blueprints for improv-
17
From Charles Eliot’s Vegetation and Scenery in the Metropolitan Reservations of Boston, one of the setsof before-and-after drawings in the manner of English landscape gardener Humphry Repton made byArthur A Shurcliff. The first-with overleaf-was captioned "Tree-clogged notch, near the southeasternescarpment of the Middlesex Fells, which might command the Malden-Melrose valley and the Saugushills." The second-with overleaf removed-illustrates the sweepmg mew of valley and hills that willappear when the notch is unclogged
18 . 1
The "Civic Pride Monument" erected m memory of Charles Ehot at the StLouis Exposition, 1902.
ing the scenery and providing access to thesesites.39 Sadly, however, Eliot died before hecould convince the Metropolitan Park Commis-sion to move on to this next stage.
Political and social action were two of thetools Eliot wielded brilliantly to achieve hisevolving goals. He worked from the bases ofpower and influence that were his birthright.As the son of the highly visible presidentof Harvard University and the descendant ofwell connected and powerful families, Eliothad learned how to inform and influence his
contemporaries, even contributing portionsof speeches to powerful friends, such as
his Harvard contemporary Gov-ernor William Russell, whoappointed Eliot to variouscommissions. Eliot’s networkinvolved a core group of fellowtravelers who could understandand appreciate his ideas. For
example, Dr. H. P. Walcott,whom Eliot invited to chair theinitial meeting in the formationof the Trustees of Public Reser-
vations, was also the chair ofthe state board of health andwould become the chair ofthe Joint Commission on theImprovement of the CharlesRiver, for which Eliot served assecretary. And Eliot could relyon Frederick Law OlmstedSr., Charles Sprague Sargent-director of the Arnold Arbore-tum-and a host of literary andpolitical lions to come forth insupport of many of his efforts.But he did not work primarilyfor the benefit of an economicand political elite; he deeplyappreciated the involvement ofan informed public. In 1897,when Warren Manning wrote tohim about the possible forma-tion of a professional societyfor landscape architects, Eliotresponded that it was more
timely and important to estab-lish a broad-based support group
for public landscape causes. The American Parkand Outdoor Art Association, founded in 1897,was the result.
Eliot’s LegacyDespite, or perhaps because of, his early death,Eliot inspired others to perpetuate his ideals. Hehad not only expanded the parameters and con-cerns of the profession of landscape architec-ture, he had also laid the foundations for theenvironmental movement and for the profes-sions of city and regional planning. A modelvillage erected at the St. Louis World’s Fair of1902 included a "Civic Pride Monument," one
19
of many such testimonials to his importanceand influence. (Ironically, Eliot would havepreferred to be remembered for his belief inmetropolitan or regional, rather than civic ormunicipal, pride.) /
Eliot’s father became a vocal advocate for theissues his son had embraced. Indeed, PresidentEliot showed the zeal of a convert. Not only didhe write and edit Charles Eliot, LandscapeArchitect, he also began to write articles andspeak in public about landscape preservation.From 1905 until 1926, he served on the StandingCommittee, the central governing board of theTrustees of Public Reservations.4° PresidentEliot carried forward his son’s vision of a forestreservation on Mount Desert Island, Maine,now Acadia National Park.4’ Perhaps CharlesEliot’s finest legacy was his father’s commit-ment to establishing a professional program inlandscape architecture at Harvard, which wasinaugurated in 1900 under the direction ofFrederick Law Olmsted Jr., Eliot’s former col-league, and Arthur Shurcliff, his former
protege.4z President Eliot’s program today main-tains his son’s name in the Charles Eliot Profes-
sorship in Landscape Architecture and theCharles Eliot Traveling Fellowship, whichenables promising young landscape architects tobenefit from travel study as its namesake had.
After his retirement from Harvard University,Charles W. Eliot moved to a house on FreshPond Parkway, a green corridor designed by hisson. The Parkway, in turn, connects the FreshPond Reservation, his son’s design for the Cam-bridge Park Commission, to the MemorialDrive Reservation on the Cambridge side of theCharles River, another of the younger Eliot’searly projects for the Cambridge Park Commis-sion. Today the Eliot Bridge (dedicated in 1955to both father and son) connects the Fresh PondParkway to the Soldiers Field Road Reservationon the Boston side of the Charles River.Even more directly perpetuating the ideals of
Charles Eliot was the work of his nephew,Charles W. Eliot II. Born in 1900, three yearsafter his uncle’s death, but named for his grand-father, this Eliot was destined from birth toadopt his uncle’s profession. "At the time I wasborn," he reported late in life, "my grandfathercame to the house and asked if it was a boy or a
girl. When he was told it was a boy, he said:’That’s good! His name will be Charles like hisuncle. He will be a landscape architect like hisuncle. He will go on with his uncle’s work."’43Trained in landscape architecture and
regional planning at Harvard, this Charlesbecame the first field secretary of the Trusteesof Public Reservations in 1925. In May of thatyear, the Trustees sponsored a conference, "TheNeeds and Uses of Open Spaces in Massachu-setts," in which he took a leading role. Oneresult of the conference was a renewed effort tocoordinate the activities of private and publicconservation organizations in the state. Equallysignificant was the proposed "Bay Circuit," anew and larger greenbelt for the Greater BostonBasin. The idea for the Bay Circuit may not havebeen Eliot’s alone, but he became its strongestlong-term supporter. Like his uncle, Eliot soonsaw an opportunity to advance the cause oflandscape architecture and regional planning bymoving into the public sector. He became thedirector of the National Capitol Park and Plan-ning Commission under the Roosevelt adminis-tration, a position he maintained until 1955.Eliot then returned to Harvard to become theCharles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architec-ture. He retired in 1968 but remained an active
supporter of land conservation and became theconscience of both The Trustees of Reservationsand the Metropolitan District Commissionuntil his death in 1992.44The early growth of the Trustees was modest,
in part, because Eliot turned his attention so
quickly to the Metropolitan Park Commission.By 1897, the year of Charles Eliot’s death, onlytwo properties, Rocky Narrows on the CharlesRiver in Canton and Mount Anne Park in
Gloucester, had been given to the Trustees.Together they totaled fewer than one hundredacres. Today, the Trustees are stewards of morethan twenty thousand acres, "the best of theMassachusetts landscape in all its diversity."4sThe orgamzation has been the inspiration forland trusts both in the United States and abroad,and Eliot’s early writings also inspired the for-mation of other organizations.46 Most notably,the National Trust for Places of Historic Inter-est or Natural Beauty in Great Britam was mod-eled on the Trustees, as was, ultimately, the
20
National Trust for Historic Preservation in theUnited States.Soon after his success in forming the Trust-
ees, Eliot turned his attention to the creation ofa public authority, the Metropolitan Park Com-mission. Celebrating its centennial in 1993, thecommission now "embraces almost twentythousand acres of parklands ranging from densewoodlands and wetlands to intensely developedand managed urban parks."°’ One of the mostimportant potential benefits of the centennialcelebration was the appointment of the GreenRibbon Commission to suggest improvementsto the organization. At the top of its list of pri-orities was the issue that Charles Eliot had
fought hard but unsuccessfully to impress onthe early commissioners-the need for carefuland persistent maintenance, or what is todaycalled stewardship.4$ The responsibility nowrests with the commission’s current admimstra-tion-and with all of us who are "trustees" ofthe Eliot legacy-to ensure that these resourcesreceive the care and the use they merit.Despite the enormous challenges posed by
increasing traffic and neglected maintenance,the metropolitan park system that Eliot envi-sioned remains his greatest achievement. Ina chapter titled "Growth Invincible" in his1906 book, The Future in America, H. G. Wellscontrasted his recent visits to New York andto Boston:
If possible it is more impressive, even, than thecrowded largeness of New York, to trace theserene preparation Boston has made through this[Metropolitan Park] Commission to be widelyand easily vast. New York’s humamty has thecurious air of being carried along upon a waveof irresistible prosperity, but Boston confesses
design. I suppose no city in all the world ... hasever produced so complete and ample a forecastof its own future as this commission’s plan forBoston.49
Today, Charles Eliot’s ideas "confess design"as clearly as they did a century ago, just asthey attempted to forecast a future not only forBoston but for the whole of American landscapearchitecture.
Notes
Henry James, Charles W. Eliot, President of HarvardUmversity, 1869-1909 ~~Bostom Houghton Mifflin,1930/, 87-158.
z Ellen Peabody Eliot to her mother, Marberg, 17November 1864, Charles W. Ehot Papers, PuseyLibrary, Harvard University (hereafter cited as CWEPapers). I.
3 Charles W. Ehot to his mother, Marberg, 5 January1865, CWE Papers.
4 Commonplace Book, October 1876. Charles EliotCollection, Frances Loeb Library, Graduate School ofDesign, Harvard University. Hereafter cited as CEC.
s Charles Eliot, Landscape Architect (Boston:Houghton Mifflin, 1902), 16. Hereafter cited asCELA.
6 Commonplace Book, July 1877. CEC7 Ibid., 30 October 1877 and December 1878.8For a picture of Harvard in the later 1870s, see DavidMcCullough, Mornings on Horseback (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1981 esp. chapter 9.
9 The quotation is from a letter Charles Ehot wrote tohis wife, Sunday, 20 July 1895, CELA, 515.
1o Diary of 1875, 14 May 1875, Pnnceton, Mass. CharlesEliot Papers, Goriansky Collection, Boston. Hereaftercited as GC.
~ For his comments on "nabobry," see CELA, 176-177;his assessments of landscapes are chiefly found mchapters 9 and 10.
12 Charles Eliot to Frederick Law Olmsted, Sunday, 10October [1887], GC.
13 Ibid.
14 CEC.15 He was greatly assisted m this process by the letters
of introduction he brought from his father, FrederickLaw Olmsted, Charles Sprague Sargent, and AsaGray, among others.
16 CELA, 32.17 Cynthia Zaitzevsky, "Education and Landscape
Architecture," in Architectural Education andBoston Centenmal Publication of the BostonArchitectural Center, 1889-1989, ed. MargaretHenderson Floyd (Boston: Boston ArchitecturalCenter, 1989/, 25.
18 CELA, 207.19 Charles W. Eliot to Charles Eliot, 11 June 1886, GC.20 Charles Eliot to Frederick Law Olmsted, 10 October
1887, GC.zi Charles Ehot to Fredenck Law Olmsted, 20 July 1889,
Eliot Correspondence File, 141-142, CEC.22 CELA, 554-556, 543-545.23 Ibid., 441.z4 Charles Eliot to Mr. Garrison, 2 November 1896,
Manuscript Letters, vol. 2, nos 164 & 165, CEC.Iromcally, Eliot died before this obituary could beused for Olmsted.
25 Charles Eliot to Roland Thaxter, 13 May 1883, GC.
21
26 Frederick Law Olmsted to his partners, Biltmore,N.C., 28 October 1893, Frederick Law OlmstedCollection, Manuscript Dmrsion, Library of
Congress, Washington, D C.z~ For mformation on Warren H Manning, see Robin
Karson, The Muses of Gwmn Art and Nature in aGarden Designed by Warren H Manning, Charles APlatt, and Ellen Biddle Shipman (Sagaponack, N.Y.:Sagapress/Library of American Landscape History,1995), esp. chapter 3; and Lance Neckar, "DevelopmgLandscape Architecture for the Twentieth Century:The Career of Warren H. Mannmg," LandscapeJournal 8 (Fall 1989/: 78-91.
2$ "What Mr. Eliot Said," Arthur Shurcliff Notebooks,Houghton Library, Harvard University.
29 CELA, 600.30 Ibid., 492.31 Ibid., 517, 230.3z CELA, 381.33 Ibid., 367, 662.34 Eliot contributed "Muskau-A German Country
Park," the fullest statement of his understanding ofand admiration for this site (which he had visited on22-23 September 1886), to the 28 January 1891 issueof Garden and Forest.
3s CELA, 596-597, 303, 377, 562, 680.36 Ian L. McHarg, A Quest for L1fe’ An Autobiography(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996), 82.
37 CELA, 547-549.38 Eliot and Sullivan were developing parallel
philosophies at the same moment. Eliot pubhshed"What Would Be Fair Must First Be Fit" in Gardenand Forest on 1 April 1896. Sullivan publishedthe clearest expression of his ideas m "The Tall
Building Artistically Considered," Lippmcott’s 57(March 1896), 403-409.
39 CELA, 650.40 Gordon Abbott Jr., Saving Special Places. A
Centennial History of the Trustees of Reservations,Pioneer of the Land Trust Movement (Ipswich, Mass.. ..
Ipswich Press, 1993), 271.41 Nan Lmcoln, "The Champlam Society," Bar Harbor
Times, 1 August 1996, B5. Eliot first described hisvision m an article for Garden and Forest in 1889The dream was realized in 1916 with theestabhshment of Mount Desert National Park.
42 Zaltzevsky, 20-34, esp. 30-31.43 "From Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace to Eliot’s Metro-
politan Parks," lecture by Charles W Eliot II, 27 Febru-ary 1983, transcript, 1, copy in possession of author.
44 The papers of Charles W. Eliot II are held in the
Special Collections of the Frances Loeb Library,Graduate School of Design, Harvard University.
as Frederic Wmthrop Jr., Introduction, The Trustees ofReservations Property Gmde (199G~, 9.
46 Abbott, 310, 319.a~ Enhancing the Future of the Metropolitan Park
System. Fmal Report and Recommendations of theGreen Ribbon Commission (Boston: MetropohtanDistrict Commission, 1996), 9 Nme thousand ofthese acres were acquired m the commission’s firstten years. The Metropolitan Park Commissionmerged with the Metropolitan Water and SewerCommission to become the Metropolitan DistrictCommission in 1919.
a8 Ibid., 47-49. The Green Ribbon Commission focusedon three general areas for improvement: buildingeffective stewardship, linking the parks and thepubhc, and managmg, planmng, and supportmg thepublic trust. The concerns Eliot expressed m hisletters to the commission about general plans areidentical. See CELA, chapter 34.
49 H. G. Wells, The Future in America (New York:Harper & Row, 1906), 49. Sylvester Baxter, Eliot’scolleague, was the guide for Wells’s tour of the BostonMetropohtan Parks
AcknowledgmentsFor a research and writing grant that supported thepreparation of this introduction, I am deeply grateful tothe Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies m the FmeArts Robm Karson, executive director of the Library ofAmerican Landscape History, and Karl Haglund, semorplanner for the Metropolitan District Commission, read,criticized, and improved the manuscript I am mdebtedto Mary Damels, curator of Special Collections, FrancesLoeb Library, Graduate School of Design, and the staff ofPusey Library, both at Harvard University, for theirassistance. My deepest debt is to Alexander Y.
Goriansky, grandson of Charles Ehot, for access to thefamily manuscripts in his possession
Keith N. Morgan is professor and chairman of art historyat Boston University. A former national president of theSociety of Architectural Historians, he has written on arange of topics m nineteenth and twentieth centuryAmerican architectural and landscape history. Inaddition to his work on Charles Eliot, he is the author ofCharles A Platt, The Artist as Architect and Shapmg anAmerican Landscape, The Art and Architecture ofCharles A Platt. With Naomi Miller, he wrote BostonArchitecture, 1975-1990 He is currently one of theprincipal authors of Buildings of Metropolitan Boston,one of two Massachusetts volumes being prepared forthe Buildings of the Umted States series, published byOxford University Press for the Society of ArchitecturalHistorians.
The new edition of Charles Ehot, LandscapeArchitect is being pubhshed by the University ofMassachusetts Press in association with the Libraryof American Landscape History. To purchase copies,phone 413.545.2219, fax 800.488.1144, or e-mail
22
Approach to an estate ofsix-and-a-half acres mIrvmgton-on-Hudson,New York, designed by
Charles Eliot, 1889-1890.To conceal the boundaries
of the estate, plant outundesirable objects, and
visually connect theplantmgs with those of
neighboring estates, Slxty-two kmds of trees andshrubs were planted inspnng 1890. Eliot sent
another list of 725 plants(52 kinds) that fall, and
yet another hst of 520 thefollowmg spring. Thephotograph shows theapproach as seen from
the highway; the sketchlooks down to the high- ~ ~way from the property.
From Charles Eliot, Land-scape Architect (1902).