In 1883, Frederick Law Olmsted moved from New York City to Brookline,
Massachusetts, a Boston suburb that anointed itself the "richest town in
the world." For the next half century, until his son Frederick Law
Olmsted Jr. relocated to California in 1936, the Olmsted firm received
more than 150 local commissions, serving as the dominant force in the
planned development of this community. From Fairsted, the Olmsteds'
Brookline home and office, the firm collaborated with an impressive
galaxy of suburban neighbors who were among the regional and national
leaders in the fields of architecture and horticulture, among them Henry
Hobson Richardson and Charles Sprague Sargent.Through plans for
boulevards and parkways, residential subdivisions, institutional
commissions, and private gardens, the Olmsted firm carefully guided the
development of the town, as they designed cities and suburbs across
America. Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. and Jr. and their associates
represented a new cohort of professionals who worked well in tandem with
the wealthy, ensuring both the visual quality and the social hierarchy
of the community.While Olmsted Sr. used landscape architecture as his
vehicle for development, his son and namesake saw Brookline as grounds
for experiment in the new profession of city and regional planning, a
field that he was helping to define and lead. Little has been published
on the importance of Brookline as a laboratory and model for the Olmsted
firm's work. This richly illustrated book provides important new
perspective on the history of planning in the United States and
illuminates an aspect of the Olmsted office that has not been well
understood. "Chock full of details (with hundreds of reproduced photos
and plans) and meticulously researched, the book exposes the multiple
webs of influence; wealth, social hierarchy, design genius and
high-minded ideals that came together to guide the development of
Brookline at a time when booming population and streetcars brought rapid
change. The authors trace the relationships among the leading
trend-setters in architecture, municipal governance, landscape design,
engineering and horticulture as they converge in Brookline at the turn
of the 19th century." --Brookline Perspective
