Project Details Page

synopsis

In 1890 Frederick Law Olmsted was hired by Joel Hurt to plan a residential community on the 1,400 acres of Druid Hills. Working with his son John Charles Olmsted, the pair produced a preliminary plan in 1893. In addition to two lakes and 6 parks, one of the property’s main features was the two-mile long Ponce de Leon Avenue.

In 1890 Frederick Law Olmsted was hired by Joel Hurt to plan a residential community on the 1,400 acres of Druid Hills. Working with his son John Charles Olmsted, the pair produced a preliminary plan in 1893. In addition to two lakes and 6 parks, one of the property’s main features was the two-mile long Ponce de Leon Avenue. The linear parkway included a 40-foot wide carriageway and trolley-track connecting the development to the city (Plan 00071-45). As one of Atlanta's first suburbs, Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned the parkway "well-shaded by handsome, umbrageous, permanently thrifty trees" in a neighborhood with a "pleasing rural, or at least, semi-rural, character of scenery." [FLO to Joel Hurt_1890-12-05_LOC-OAR-A-im268-273]

After their father’s retirement, the Olmsted Brothers continued the design for Druid Hills, including modifying the western portion of the plan. Construction began after the project was sold to the Druid Hills Corporation in 1908. More recently beginning in the 1990s, after staving off previous efforts to build a state highway through the middle of the linear park, the community undertook the restoration of the Druid Hills linear park, now named Olmsted Linear Park.

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