Olmsted Brothers

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The Olmsted Brothers company was an influential landscape design firm in the United States, formed in 1898 by stepbrothers John Charles Olmsted (1852-1920) and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957), who had inherited the nation's first landscape architecture business from their father, Frederick Law Olmsted. This firm was a successor to the earlier firm of Olmsted, Olmsted and Eliot after the untimely death of their gifted partner Charles Eliot. The two brothers were also among the founding members of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and played an influential role in creating the National Park Service.

The Olmsted Brothers completed numerous high-profile projects, many of which remain popular to this day, including park systems, universities, exposition grounds, libraries, hospitals, residential neighborhoods and state capitols. Notable commissions include the United States Capitol and White House Grounds, Great Smoky Mountains and Acadia National Parks, Yosemite Valley, New York's Central Park, Atlanta's Piedmont Park, a residential neighborhood in Oak Bay, British Columbia, Canada [Uplands] and entire park systems in cities such as Seattle, Boston and Louisville. (Please note that this list includes the works of both the Olmsted Brothers and their father.) The firm employed nearly 60 staff at its peak in the early 1930s. Notable landscape architects in the firm included James Frederick Dawson. The last family member in the firm, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., retired in 1949.

"Fairsted", the firm's 100 year old business headquarters and design office, has been carefully preserved as the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site, located on 7 acres (28,000 m²) of landscaped grounds at 99 Warren St., Brookline, Massachusetts. It offers excellent insights into the actual practice of large-scale landscape design and engineering.