Reports from the Field: the Historic Preservation PPN

The second article in an ongoing series that highlights the work PPN members are doing in their practice specialty.

ASLA recently asked all PPN members to allow a glimpse into their unique work portfolios. Each week, we’ll be using this space in LAND Online to share what we’ve learned about the members of each PPN.

Members of the Historic Preservation PPN work in private practice and for government to document, interpret, preserve, and restore historic sites and cultural landscapes. Their work ranges widely, from restoring small historic gardens to preserving cultural resources on a landscape scale.

Federal Interest in Preserving Cultural Landscapes and Historic Sites
Historic preservation is integral to the work of many landscape architects in public practice, and particularly so in the National Park Service (NPS). Jillian Cowley, ASLA, of the NPS manages the Cultural Landscapes Program for the Intermountain Region, which includes Yellowstone and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Her work includes “assisting with research, planning, and stewardship of the parks’ cultural landscape resources and providing training in cultural landscape resources for park, concessions, and State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) staff.” Cowley is the coauthor, with Shaun Eyring, of "Women's History and Cultural Landscapes," in Exploring a Common Past, published in 2003.

Susan Hitchcock, ASLA, writes Cultural Landscape Reports (CLRs) for parks in NPS’s Southeast Region. A recent project example, the CLR for the Dungeness Historic District, included documentation of an extensive estate garden developed by Lucy Coleman Carnegie on Cumberland Island from 1881-1916.  At the 2005 Southern Garden Heritage Conference, Hitchcock presented "Documentation's Role in Landscape Preservation: The Georgia Historic Landscape Initiative.”

The NPS’s interest in cultural landscapes and historic preservation provides work for private landscape architecture firms. Douglas M. Nelson, ASLA, a principal owner of the firm Royston Hanamoto Alley & Abey, is currently designing improvements to the Curry Village Historic District and planning the Olmsted Point rehabilitation, both in Yosemite National Park. Other current historic landscape projects include work on the Palace of Fine Arts Landscape and Lagoon Restoration in San Francisco. The firm was awarded the 2005 Governor's Historic Preservation Award (California) for the Golden Gate Park National Register Nomination.

Then of course, there is the Historical American Landscape Survey (HALS), a program established by the NPS and strongly supported by ASLA and by ASLA’s Historic Preservation PPN. Susan Crook, ASLA, principal of Susan Crook & Associates Historical Landscape Architecture, combines her design work with advocacy for the need to document historic sites through HALS.  Her firm’s mission “is to institutionalize historic landscape preservation through partnerships, projects, education, legislation, funding, and stewardship.” Recent accomplishments include securing a grant to conduct a Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS) of the Salt Lake City Cemetery, and an invitation to refine and reprise the "Landscaping Your Historic Home: Rehab It Right!” workshop for the Utah Heritage Foundation. Because of Crook’s participation in an American Institute of Architects (AIA) Sustainable Design Assessment Team for Alexandria Township, New Jersey, a HALS will be conducted in the township to assist with township planning efforts and to field test a HALS inventory form.

Historic Preservation as Part Time Passion
While some landscape architects devote virtually all of their professional life to historic preservation projects and advocacy, for others, historic preservation is part of a varied suite of professional activities or a pro bono labor of love that extends into retirement. Robert F. Wells, ASLA reports, “I am retired but active in community affairs. I currently chair the Los Alamos County Historic District Advisory Board. This board's responsibilities include countywide historic preservation. We sponsored one historic landscape project this past year.”

William F. Menke, ASLA of Menke and Menke LLC, reports that while the firm’s moneymaking projects tend to involve schools, highway planting, and institutional work, “much of our less remunerative work continues to be in the historic preservation area.” Menke lectures on historic preservation topics such as Colonial Revival gardens and the historic evolution of school sites in Philadelphia. His partner Carol Menke recently passed the LEED 2.1 accreditation exam, and the firm is working on several LEED certified school projects for the school district of Philadelphia.

A. Graham Sones, ASLA works for ATS&R Inc., and also maintains a small private practice, A.G. Sones, RLA, with more of a focus on historic preservation. In his consulting work, he “typically only keeps one client at a time.” His historic preservation work has included an historic assessment and trail impact study, Mayowood Rd., in Rochester, MN; an RFP to provide a Cultural Landscape Report for the Mayowood Estate; historic Glenwood Falls bank stabilization project; and the Memorial Rose Garden for the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Sones recently attended seminars in masonry restoration, and maintains a connection to his family's historic estate.

Historic Preservation as Firm Focus
Many landscape architecture firms specialize in preserving historic sites and cultural landscapes. At The Kane Group LLC, Brian P. Kane, ASLA “continuously addresses the interpretation and integration of historic sites, including designed gardens and national register landmarks, into present day site needs.” Kane recently designed a park on the grounds of the International Latitude Observatory (c. 1898) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, a project requiring interpretation of a historic site that also faced present day vandalism concerns. Kane also recently presented a paper on the interpretation of the Civil War's Fort Ethan Allen in Arlington, Virginia.

Elena M. Pascarella, ASLA of Landscape Elements LLC, says her work focuses on “preservation and enhancement of cultural landscapes, so that new design projects are contextually sensitive.” The firm was awarded, with the Elmore Design Collaborative (Thomas J. Elmore, ASLA) a restoration project at historic Wilcox Park in Westerly, Rhode Island. Currently, Pascarella is working on the redesign of a vacant lot in a small Rhode Island village in a project that “looks to connect the lot with the nearby river and wetlands, and integrate the site within the town/community setting.”

Jack E. Leaman, FASLA, AICP, of the firm Consultant, Inc. “provides historic preservation presentations to small communities in north Iowa, and serves on the Design Committee of the Mason City Main Street Program, which has a strong preservation purpose and objectives.” He has participated in an Iowa Great Places program for Swaledale Bio-Village, “a new green architecture and sustainable landscape architecture project on 40 acres of land” that will preserve the historic landscape of the area. Leaman is also involved in historic preservation activities in the Main Street program for downtown Mason City, including the 1912 Park Inn Hotel building, “said to be the only remaining hotel by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.”

John Royster, ASLA is a principal of Big Muddy Workshop, Inc., “a firm that provides historic preservation planning and design services as part of our landscape architectural and interpretive exhibit design work…As a small diversified practice firm we enjoy the challenges of switching from contemporary design projects to preservation projects. We consider site history in all projects.” A recent project was the Nebraska State Capitol Landscape Restoration Master Plan, “a CLR format restoration master plan for Nebraska's architecturally acclaimed 1930's Capitol.”

Laura L. Knott, ASLA, is a project manager in the Charlottesville, Virginia office of John Milner Associates, Inc. (JMA), a historic preservation and cultural resources management firm.  “The Charlottesville office of JMA undertakes cultural landscape preservation planning and implementation projects throughout the United States ranging from small, private gardens to large, complex civic spaces, and from rehabilitated historic sites to multi-county heritage areas.” One of Knott’s recent projects is the rehabilitation of the Pavilion Alleys on the Range at the University of Virginia, a World Heritage Site. Knott has also recently authored the "Historic Landscapes" chapter of the new Landscape Architectural Graphics Standards, forthcoming.

Linda Luchesi Cody, ASLA focuses on the historic elements of another university campus: the University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Garden and its Nichols Arboretum. She works with “both an historical landscape (Nichols Arboretum) and an historical building (Alden Dow's only Conservatory design) at Matthaei Botanical Gardens. We are also restoring our landscapes to their historical ecotype.”

Paul R. Brydges, ASLA reports that having started his own business, Brydges Landscape Architecture Inc., in the last year and a half, “I now have the time to start focusing on the parts of landscape architecture that I most enjoy: restoring old gardens.” He is finding that “many different avenues are available to bring the historic aspects of garden design and construction into designs that I am creating everyday.” Recently, Brydges was honored to have a design accepted for a display garden at Canada Blooms in Toronto.

ASLA thanks all of the Historic Preservation PPN members who shared reports of their exciting work and achievements. We know that many more of you have exciting news to share, so we encourage all PPN members to be prepared to respond when the Second Annual Survey goes out in February of 2007. In the meantime, turn to your PPN listserv and newsletter to exchange information, swap stories, and share achievements with your PPN colleagues. And watch this space for more reports from the field by members of other PPNs.      

For more information on ASLA's PPNs, please contact Jennifer Strassfeld, ASLA's professional practice manager, at jstrassfeld@asla.org, or visit the PPN website.