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Beyond Central Park: Three Idyllic Landscapes by Frederick Law Olmsted

A look at some of the lesser-known green spaces created by the architectural mastermind

By Paula de la Cruz
Aerial view of a large botanical garden with manicured lawns, colorful flower beds, and surrounding lush green forests.
The stunning gardens at North Carolina’s Biltmore Estate was one of the last commissions for celebrated landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted. Photo: Courtesy of the Biltmore Company

Frederick Law Olmsted is considered the godfather of American landscape architecture and one of the country’s first environmentalists. He was an avid traveler, farmer, and journalist before submitting his winning design for Manhattan’s Central Park in 1858. Many of his naturalistic, English-style, 18th-century landscapes still thrive today throughout the U.S.

“Service must precede art” was his guiding principle when creating urban parks for city workers, a social reform he believed in passionately. Below, Galerie explores Olmsted’s signature style in three unexpected places: a public park, an arboretum, and a private estate.

Stone arch bridge in a lush park with two people walking on the path underneath.
Franklin Park, within Massachusetts’s Emerald Necklace green space, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Courtesy of Emerald Necklace Conservancy

1. Emerald Necklace
Boston 

Olmsted designed this “green ribbon” connecting Boston Common to Brookline as a place where people could “easily go when the day’s work is done.” He worked on the park from 1878 to ’96, implementing pastoral landscape elements with the aim of restoring the spirit, and for “unconscious or indirect recreation.” One of the parkland’s main features is Jamaica Pond, which Olmsted framed with oaks, chestnuts, maples, tulip trees, and many more native species that turn various hues of red in the fall. In addition, the waterway is a great place for fishing and bird-watching.

Historic house with lush garden and colorful flowers surrounded by tall trees on a sunny day.
A view of the manor house at Bayard Cutting Arboretum on Long Island. Courtesy of Bayard Cutting Arboretum

2. Bayard Cutting Arboretum
Long Island, New York

The jewel of this arboretum is its conifer collection. There are many specimen trees from founder William Bayard Cutting’s original planting, including a majestic Sargent’s weeping hemlock planted in 1890 and a 125-year-old European weeping beech. Fourteen species of mature oaks create a dynamic background and offer a unique perspective when viewed from the property’s manor house, known as Westbrook.

Garden with blooming flowers, wisteria-covered pergolas, and lush green trees under a clear sky.
An arbor of wisteria and trumpet creeper vines is one of the focal points of Biltmore’s Library Terrace. Courtesy of the Biltmore Company

3. Biltmore Estate
Asheville, North Carolina

Olmsted’s final important commission was for George W. Vanderbilt II in 1888, when the wealthy heir enlisted the landscaper to design the grounds for his palatial mansion, Biltmore, in Asheville, North Carolina. Vanderbilt’s endless resources gave Olmsted free reign to develop the 250-acre property into an arboretum, forestry nursery,  formal terrace, and a walled potager abounding with fruits and vegetables. In 1894 Olmsted retired from Biltmore because of poor health. His son, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., stood in for his father for the completion of the landscape designer’s portrait by John Singer Sargent, which still hangs in the château.