Genius of Place (54 page)

Finally, John packed Owen onto a train and brought him back East. Olmsted and Mary met up with the train in Albany. By this point, Owen
was comatose. He never regained consciousness. On a clean white piece of card stock, in a hand much clearer than his usual rapid-fire scrawl, Olmsted wrote: “Albany, 21st Nov. 1881. Owen died here tranquilly at noon today.”

Owen had looked eerily like Olmsted's brother John. He shared the same easy temperament. And now he had died from the same malady, tuberculosis. Olmsted, curiously, insisted on claiming that Owen succumbed to diabetes. It's quite possible that he suffered from this disease, too. There's a link between the two illnesses. But Olmsted was in denial, unable to accept the fact that tuberculosis had actually killed Owen.

Condolences flooded in to Olmsted and Mary. But there's an air of puzzlement in many of the letters. “The whole thing seems to me incredible,” reads one from a man named John Platt. “How could he have been so ill as he must have been? ... I can not understand. It is all very sad, but what extraordinary pluck and resolution the boy must have had.”

Vaux's note to Olmsted was particularly dissonant. “John certainly felt that you were suffering less than might be anticipated from such a shock—but the actual suffering is not always the criteria.”
Actual suffering not always the criteria?
Apparently, Olmsted didn't appear to be in as much pain as one might expect under the circumstances. In a letter to Brace, Olmsted described the effect of Owen's death on him as “tranquilizing.” There's that word again. Olmsted had suffered so many tragedies. With this latest one, he appears to have simply gone numb.

Still, he managed to feel something. Shortly after Owen's death, Olmsted lost control of his horse, was thrown, and fractured his sternum.

 

Olmsted longed for something, anything—in work, in life—that didn't feel ephemeral. Meanwhile, the Boston commission finally managed to line up ample funding. Olmsted had been working on a park-by-park basis. Now the commission asked him to create an entire park system, like what he'd done earlier in Buffalo. Olmsted was charged with designing new parks and also cobbling together the odds and ends he'd designed so far—a wetland preserve, an arboretum—into a single integrated system. The whole thing would be connected with ribbons of green space, or waterways in some cases, as well as his signature parkways. In
February 1883, Olmsted was officially named “landscape architect advisory.” He signed a three-year contract at a salary of $2,000 per annum.

Several years of guaranteed work were just the inducement Olmsted needed. He was ready to cut his last ties with New York. Olmsted began looking for a permanent home in Brookline. Richardson wanted Olmsted to move next door—as in, take up residence on his lawn. He offered to design him a house there, and in a letter to Olmsted he included a rough sketch, labeled: “Your house—a beautiful thing in shingles.” Richardson was in earnest, but Olmsted viewed this as just a lark.

Still, Olmsted was set on moving to the “civilized community” of Brookline. In an era when his Riverside, Illinois, suburb was a novelty, Brookline was one of the few established suburbs in America. The place appealed to Olmsted for a reason that would become a venerable American cliché in the years ahead: Here, it was possible to have a big yard yet still be close to the city. No less a talent than Downing had landscaped the grounds surrounding several Brookline homes. Olmsted had lived in the country, the city, and now he was ready for the suburbs.

Olmsted was especially taken with an old farmhouse at 99 Warren Street owned by Sarah and Susannah Clark, a pair of elderly spinster sisters. Olmsted made them an offer, but at first they refused. Then he hit upon a compromise. If they would sell him the house, stepson John would build them a cottage on the edge of the property. The sisters would have a place to live for the rest of their lives, and they'd have the proceeds of the sale. The Clark sisters agreed to sell Olmsted the house for $13,200.

Being the nation's premiere landscape architect had made Olmsted famous. It hadn't made him rich. Olmsted's new house was large, comfortable, but well short of a mansion. Still, he gave it a grand name: Fairsted. Fairsted was his family's ancestral village in the county of Essex, England. Olmsted had visited the place during his 1850 walking tour.

Olmsted converted the large north parlor of the new house into an office. Mary had never been enamored of Olmsted's blending of domesticity and work. So at Fairsted, he built a “sleeping porch” above his office. He slept there by himself surrounded by books. Piled high on his nightstand were old favorites such as Carlyle, Gilpin, Ruskin, and Zimmermann's
Solitude
. If he awoke in the middle of the night, gripped by an idea, he could shuffle downstairs to his office without disturbing Mary.

As in the New York brownstone, this office was modestly appointed. There were bookshelves lined with titles on landscaping and reports from various parks. Hanging on the walls were a few framed reproductions of favorite plans such as Central Park, the Capitol grounds, and Mount Royal. The part-time draftsmen worked in little cedar-lined cubicles.

This was nothing like Richardson's flamboyant home office on nearby Cottage Street. Richardson's office featured a huge fireplace elaborately filigreed with ironwork imported from Venice. Everywhere, there were elegant sofas and window seats. To create beauty, Richardson felt, one needed to be surrounded by beauty.

Olmsted couldn't have agreed more. But he had a different approach. He had once been a farmer, had signed his Southern dispatches “Yeoman.” Though he'd become a premier artist, he had never really been comfortable with the trappings of the artist's life. His home office was utilitarian, a place for work. But fittingly, for a man so enamored of nature, Olmsted contrived it so that one need only walk out the front door. Here beauty held sway.

Olmsted turned Fairsted's 2-acre yard into a glorious personal park. It featured specimen trees such as a large elm that had drawn Olmsted to the property in the first place. Charles Sargent, who lived across the street, gave Olmsted a cucumber magnolia tree as a present. Olmsted also planted an area that was untamed and overgrown, his own private Central Park Ramble. He lined Fairsted's walls with trellises and let the wisteria creep and crawl until it was hard to see where his garden ended and his house began.

Olmsted was sixty-one years old when he moved to Fairsted. He'd gone completely bald on top, making his forehead appear prominent, domelike. This was what the Victorians referred to as a “noble brow.” On the sides, he let his hair grow into a long gray mane. He'd just added a shaggy beard. People had been telling him that he looked like Benjamin Butler, the Massachusetts governor. Olmsted didn't approve of Butler's politics. The beard, he claimed, was to distinguish himself from Butler, who sported only a mustache. Sometimes, Olmsted's light-blue eyes still
filled with their old spark. He'd seen more than his share of misfortune, but with age he was learning to take joy where he could find it.

Three of his children lived with him. Shy and dutiful John had just turned thirty. He'd remain at Fairsted until he got married in late middle age. Marion, Olmsted's “little old maid,” was twenty-two. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. was thirteen now and attending Miss Rideout's School in Brookline. He had a mischievous streak, like his father. Charlotte had married a doctor and was living nearby in Cohasset. Richardson—fond of saying, “I'll plan anything a man wants from a cathedral to a chicken coop”—designed a modest house for the couple. Charlotte had two children, making Olmsted a grandfather.

Living in Brookline, Olmsted enjoyed a vibrant social life. Besides Richardson and Sargent, both minutes away, his good friends Godkin and Charles Eliot Norton were nearby in Cambridge. Norton was a prominent critic and professor of art history at Harvard. Olmsted joined the St. Botolph Club, which numbered among its members William Dean Howells as well as publishers Henry Houghton and George Mifflin. Olmsted was surrounded by people who were accomplished, challenging, and socially conscious. “I enjoy this suburban country beyond expression,” he wrote to Brace.

 

Shortly after moving to Fairsted, Olmsted took on his first apprentice, Charles Eliot. The decision was inspired by Richardson. Richardson, who had attended Paris's École des Beaux-Arts, was one of the few formally trained architects in the United States, a distinction he shared with Vaux. He viewed it as an obligation to teach his skills to others, and a series of apprentices passed through his Brookline workshop. As the pioneer of landscape architecture in America, Olmsted realized that he needed to do more than simply bequeath his firm to his sons at some future point. He also needed to draw others to the field.

Olmsted was thrilled by Eliot's qualifications—also his pedigree. Eliot, son of the president of Harvard, had just graduated from the university's horticulture program. He was also the second cousin of Olmsted's friend Charles Eliot Norton. Soon, young Eliot was joined by a second apprentice, Henry Codman. Codman was a recent graduate of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and the nephew of Charles Sargent. There's an incestuousness at work here, like so much in Olmsted's professional life. But it was certainly a heartening sign that young people such as these were attracted to landscape architecture.

There was plenty to keep the apprentices busy. Olmsted had recently landed a major commission for Belle Isle, an island park in Detroit. There was a land subdivision in Providence, Rhode Island, and he had just started designing the campus of the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. Still other jobs involved further collaboration with Richardson, such as more private estates as well as some Massachusetts train stations. Olmsted made John a formal partner in the business. The firm was rechristened F. L. & J. C. Olmsted. Olmsted instructed John to “throw more upon Eliot and let him throw more on Codman.”

But the Boston park system remained Olmsted's primary obligation. “Nothing else compares to the Boston work,” he stated. During this period in his career, his goal was “doing the best for Boston all the time.” In 1884, he began work on a new park for the city. During his 1875 visit with commissioner Dalton, Olmsted had singled out this piece of land as particularly attractive and parklike. At the time, it was considered the potential site for a future West Roxbury park. Now it was a go. The place was dubbed Franklin Park. Benjamin Franklin had left a bequest to the City of Boston that was scheduled to mature soon. The plan was to tap some of the money for park-construction costs. This didn't happen, but the name remained.

For his design, Olmsted conceptualized Franklin Park's roughly 500 acres as two distinct parcels destined for very different treatments. The larger piece was a hilly section dotted with hemlocks and other attractive old-growth trees. Experience had taught Olmsted that on those rare occasions when one is blessed with a truly fetching piece of land, the task is simple: Just leave things alone.

For the other parcel, he pursued a serious overhaul to convert it into a recreational space. Times had changed in the nearly quarter century since Olmsted and Vaux had designed Central Park. America was becoming more active, and people were increasingly enjoying outdoor sports. For Franklin Park, Olmsted designed a raised terrace, nearly three
hundred feet long, with a wall of boulders that were Roxbury puddingstone. This elevated plateau was meant so spectators could overlook the fields where people engaged in baseball, tennis, and other games. Olmsted also designed a long fieldstone building to serve as a locker room and a shelter. He called it Playstead. Olmsted was a landscape architect; designing a building was the province of architects. But Olmsted was nothing if not versatile. (Unfortunately, his terrace and shelter have fallen into ruin today.)

Franklin Park is the biggest park in the Boston system. Ultimately, Olmsted would provide a park treatment for a large glacial kettle hole (Jamaica Pond) and add several smaller parks to go along with the Back Bay Fens, Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park. He'd use a variety of means to stitch the whole thing together. Olmsted even made some adjustments to Commonwealth Avenue, integrating this existing grand thoroughfare into his system. Commonwealth Avenue, in turn, connected with two established smaller parks, the colonial-era Boston Common and the Public Garden from 1837.

Taken together, this was a bountiful green space, 1,100 acres arrayed over nearly seven miles from downtown Boston. It was far and away the most ambitious park system of Olmsted's career. Olmsted referred to the system as the “Jeweled Girdle.” He had a knack for nomenclature, but this was not a winner. An unknown someone came up with the name that stuck: the Emerald Necklace.

CHAPTER 28

AT THE STROKE of midnight on July 15, 1885, a ceremony was held where Niagara Falls was officially “opened,” free of charge, to the public. Thousands of people were on hand to view this American icon. Many of those present were first-time visitors who lived within mere miles of the falls. But they had never before seen them because the place had grown into such a racket, such a horrid hassle. “From this hour, Niagara is free,” announced William Dorsheimer during the ceremonies. Dorsheimer, Olmsted's onetime patron on the Buffalo parks, was chairman of the newly formed Niagara commission. This was a major victory for Olmsted, too, as his involvement in the cause stretched back over many years.

During the nineteenth century, Niagara Falls had become the number-one tourist destination in America. In the process, it had become a grotesque parody of the natural wonder famously glimpsed by Father Hennepin in 1678. On arriving at the falls, visitors were immediately mobbed by barkers and sharps intent on diverting them to various entertainments. There were amusement parks, sideshows, and fireworks. Acrobats such as the Great Blondin regularly crossed the gorge beneath the falls on tightropes. If that wasn't enough, the Niagara River was fairly choked with industry; pulp mills and flumes and piers lined the banks. And everywhere there were billboards for products like “Parker's Hair Balsam.” Getting an unobstructed view of the falls was a challenge, and
people paid for the privilege. The best spots were on private property, and sightseers were assessed hefty fees. “To drive around and visit all the places worth seeing costs a single person at least ten dollars,” lamented one contemporary account. “If you are on foot, at every few yards a hackman shouts to you for your patronage, or a low shop-girl affectionately invites you into a store.”