Community By Design: The Olmsted Firm and the Development of Brookline, Massachusetts

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 o...