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synopsis

Frederick Law Olmsted worked with William Seward Webb, the owner of Shelburne Farms, over three years to create designs for the grounds of the sprawling Vermont property. Olmsted’s first plan in 1887 was to divide “the estate into farm, forest, and park lands.” Ultimately consisting of 3,600 acres, the site was created through the purchase of 32 individual farms.

Frederick Law Olmsted worked with William Seward Webb, the owner of Shelburne Farms, over three years to create designs for the grounds of the sprawling Vermont property. Olmsted’s first plan in 1887 was to divide “the estate into farm, forest, and park lands.” [FLO to W.S. Webb_07-12-1887_LOC-FLOP-SF-01031_im.3] Ultimately consisting of 3,600 acres, the site was created through the purchase of 32 individual farms. Inviting Olmsted to visit the site, Webb explained “I have just completed the purchase of seven hundred acres additional land adjoining my property at Shelburne, lying to the east and south thereof…The purchase of this new property will give me all the pasture land I want down there, and I am now willing to follow up your idea and make a forest of the northern part.” [W.S. Webb to FLO_02-20-1889_LOC-OAR-B-01031-im.12] While Olmsted’s exact plans were not implemented per se, modified versions of them greatly influenced the future development of the grounds into a pasture land.

Webb is an example of the interconnection between many of Olmsted’s wealthy clients. Webb had married Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt, the daughter of William Henry Vanderbilt in 1881. Vanderbilt, the older brother of George Vanderbilt owner Biltmore Estate (00170), built his daughter, as a wedding gift, a home in New York City which was later sold in 1913 to John D. Rockefeller, with whom Olmsted had worked on Pocantico Hills (00243).

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