The Olmsted Brothers, a nationally renowned landscape firm responsible for significant urban landscapes in Seattle and Portland, also designed numerous private residential subdivisions and estate gardens throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The early twentieth century was the era of the grand estate. The fashionable elite, seeking haven from urban life, built country homes on the outskirts of major U.S. cities. The arrival of the automobile made it possible for the wealthy class to establish large estates in the countryside, while still allowing access to the city for the businessman's commute. Most of these estates were weekend retreats and summer homes, although some were year-round residences.

From 1903 until 1939, the Olmsteds designed about thirty private estate gardens in Portland, forty-one in Spokane, and about forty in Seattle, not including North Seattle's Highlands, in which they designed thirty-one estate gardens.

During the summer, the well-to-do entertained guests in their gardens. They played on the croquet lawns and the tennis courts, basked in the sun by pools, and relaxed in rose gardens and teahouses. During the early part of the twentieth century, many of these amenities were requisite features of local estates.

The largest of these designed estates were often planned as a formal arrangement of these outdoor spaces set within a picturesque landscape. Garden rooms were arranged hierarchically, and articulated by built elements and terraces, in an order centered upon axial views and vistas to the mountains or water.

The Olmsteds and the Picturesque

The Olmsteds practiced in the picturesque tradition. The idea of the picturesque began in England and drew upon the tradition of the English and French landscape painters working in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. Picturesque paintings generally included small figures framed by often assymetrical natural elements. Early landscape painters in this tradition favored grottoes, nymphs, and diminutive architectural features, while later Romantic painters accentuated raw nature juxtaposed with limited evidence of human occupation. Landscape designers translated this aesthetic into forms that shaped ideal views, and produced evocative compositions reflecting a reverence for the awe-inspiring qualities of nature.

In the nineteenth century, Andrew Jackson Downing introduced the idea of the picturesque style to designers and homeowners in the United States. Downing adapted the ideas of the English landscape garden and promoted the creation of landscape settings that allowed for a heightened sense of one's physical and visual experience of nature.

Olmsted designs, following in this tradition, were driven by the desire to enhance the experience of movement through a space by siting circulation paths, plant massings and architectural features in a complex arrangement to create a series of pictorially composed views. These compositions were created for enjoying both near or foreground views along drives or across a clearing in the woods, and more distant views of the mountains or water. Curvilinear edges softened through planting designs accentuating light and texture, using plant materials in much the same way that painters use paint.

Olmsted Brothers Residential Gardens in the Pacific Northwest

The grandest of these projects was "Thornewood," Chester Thorne's 100-acre estate at American Lake near Tacoma, built in 1908. The estate's Tudor style mansion, "Thornewood Castle," was designed by the well known architect Kirtland Cutter of Spokane, WA. It was skillfully sited on an Olmsted lawn, which was set off by large underplanted trees and massings of shrubs. These plantings mediate between the pastoral lawn and the larger dramatic setting of the conifer forests, lake and mountains beyond.

The view of Mount Rainier was to be enjoyed within the enclosure of the formal Sunken Garden or from a window in the master bedroom. This window was aligned on axis with the garden. Two garden pavilions framed the view from both perspectives.

Other formal gardens included a water garden and the rose, rock and woodland gardens. Thornewood has not only been considered the masterpiece of the Olmsted firm's estate designs in the Northwest, but in 1930 the Garden Club of America voted it the most beautiful garden in the United States.

The land was subdivided in the 1960's, leaving only four acres of the original 37 remaining around the original house. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. Today, the castle is a private bed and breakfast and can be visited by reservation or appointment only. Recently, the house starred in the made-for-television movie, "Rose Red." The current owners are in the process of restoring the Sunken Garden, also known as the "secret garden."

In Seattle and the Highlands

The Olmsteds designed smaller estates in a variety of settings in the Seattle area.

The south slope of Queen Anne Hill, which provided excellent views of the Sound, the Olympics, and the city, became host to many mansions in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1909, Charles H. Black, the founder and owner of the Seattle Hardware Company, built a large Bebb and Mendel designed Tudor-style mansion on 1.7 acres of property terraced by the Olmsted Brothers. The house and gardens were designated a Seattle City Landmark in 1970 because of the property's distinctive character and neighborhood prominence.

Somewhat larger estates were built in the Highlands, a gated community in North Seattle. Between 1907 and 1915, the Olmsteds planned the subdivision and designed most of the estates within it.

At the Highlands, curvilinear two-lane roads were aligned in the picturesque style to create a naturalized setting in which one could enjoy the experience of driving through the second-growth conifer forest, while houses were sited in clearings that emerged from the forest along the way. The driveways of the estates were aligned in similar winding fashion through the estate, and terminated in grand loops at the front of the house.

Norcliffe, the 14-acre C.D. Stimson estate, was situated in a clearing that provided sweeping panoramic views of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains. In typical Olmstedian fashion, the large Mediterranean-style house was placed upon the eastern edge of an oval-shaped lawn, across which these views could be enjoyed.

The ornamental plantings along the edges of these lawns were intermixed with native plants to soften this transition from the 'wilderness' of the forest to the pastoral setting of the house and gardens. Formal garden rooms were often defined by walls, hedges, terraces or other enclosures which were softened and screened with plantings or otherwise hidden from view from the lawn or drive, so as not to interrupt the pastoral feel of the larger estate landscape.

Preservation of Olmsted Gardens

Many of the Highlands estates have been subdivided or otherwise altered. Only one of these estates remains intact, while some have had divided parcels "reunited" or are in various states of "restoration" by owners. In 1997, the Friends of Seattle's Olmsted Parks secured a grant to produce an inventory of the Olmsted firm's residential projects in the Pacific Northwest. This is a valuable first step in recognizing and preserving the Olmsted legacy of private designed landscapes in the Pacific Northwest.

It includes valuable information about the availability of archival materials for each project. While it also includes a notation about whether the original gardens or house are extant, this information is not qualitative and the basis for assessment is not defined. An updated listing and assessment of these landscapes would be a valuable tool for researchers and for garden conservation and education efforts. Because they are all private residences, such efforts would require cooperation of the current owners and may be a complex undertaking.

The Dunn Gardens, located just south of the Highlands, is the only Olmsted Brothers designed residential landscape in Washington State that retains its original integrity and is open to the public. It can be visited seasonally and by appointment only. The original Dunn Estate was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in1994. The gardens are being maintained and operated by the E.B. Dunn Historic Garden Trust.

For more information:

Catherine Joy Johnson. "Olmsted in the Pacific Northwest: Private Estates and Residential Communities: An Inventory." Seattle: Friends of Seattle's Olmsted Parks, 1997. (available at Seattle Public Library and the University of Washington Library)

For more about the history of American gardens and garden estates read: Eleanor Weller and Mac Griswold, "The Golden Age of American Gardens." New York: Harry Abrams, 1991.

Visit the Dunn Gardens Website.

For more about the Olmsted Centennial Conference, visit the conference website.

View last month's Preservation & Environment article

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