The National Park Service

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) is recognized as the founder of American landscape architecture. In 1883, after supervising the design and construction of such landmarks as Central Park and the US Capitol Grounds, Olmsted moved his family from New York City to 99 Warren Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. It was here that he also re-established his office. "Fairsted," as he called it, served as both a home and the world's first full-scale professional practice of landscape architecture. All the processes of design, from drafting to printing, were carried out here. Thousands of projects, from conception to completion, are reflected in the vast design records of the Olmsted firm. The work of the Brookline office continued for nearly a century with Olmsted, his sons, and their associates designing thousands of public and private landscape projects across the United States. The National Park Service acquired Olmsted's home and office in 1979 and maintains many of the working records in the interest of understanding and preserving the special places this firm created.