CHAPTER XI
DECEMBER 1894–MAY 1895

The documents in this chapter reflect Olmsted’s gradual withdrawal from projects other than the Boston parks and Biltmore. Biltmore, especially, occupied his time and attention. After a month-long trip to Asheville in October and November, Olmsted’s letters to Charles McNamee and his Memorandum on work to be done that winter show his determination to realize his vision for key components of the estate, including the planting of the Approach Road and the creation of a scenic cliff face at the quarry. Olmsted’s letter to Rick of December 1894 shows his passionate interest in Rick’s acquiring the horticultural knowledge that he lacked and reveals Olmsted’s hopes for his son’s social and spiritual growth. The two letters to Rick of February 1895 offer the first glimpse of the problems in the execution of the Biltmore Arboretum and reveal Olmsted’s lack of awareness of the mistakes made by planting superintendent Warren H. Manning. Two letters to Charles Eliot show the extent of work yet to be done at Biltmore and reveal troublesome disagreements with Richard Morris Hunt, especially over the design of Biltmore Village.

Other letters concern Olmsted’s continuing work with the Boston park commission. The January letter to park commission president John Andrew urges the park commission to defer the construction of a proposed esplanade along the Charles River. The February letter expresses Olmsted’s desire for Boston to institute an exemplary boating service and provides new details on Olmsted’s past experiences at sea. A letter to Boston park commissioner Francis Amasa Walker reaffirms Olmsted’s belief that monuments were inappropriate in public parks and scenic recreation areas. And Olmsted’s letter to his partners of April 1895 protests a plan for a private vendor to lease a portion [855]of Franklin Park to raise fowl for market in exchange for supplying the park system with waterfowl.

The remaining five letters in the chapter deal with affairs in New York City. Olmsted’s letter to Charles De Forest Burns declining an appointment to a committee reviewing work on the new Harlem River Speedway is a declaration of the role of the landscape architect as a creative designer, not a decorator. Similarly, his letter to J. Baxter Upham conveys support for former partner Calvert Vaux, who was passed over for the Speedway plan by the park commission. The letter to William A. Stiles indicates Olmsted’s concern that a rising generation of architects, artists, and critics was attempting to transform the parks he had designed through the introduction of statuary and neoclassical architecture. Olmsted’s letter to Gifford Pinchot advises caution about accepting an appointment to the park commission. And his letter to longtime collaborator George Waring, in which Olmsted recalls some of the struggles of his early years on Central Park, predicts that Waring’s appointment as Street Commissioner will be fraught with difficulties because of the demands of political patronage.