John Fletcher Steele (June 7, 1885 – July 16, 1971) was an
American landscape architect credited with designing and creating over 700 gardens from 1915 to the time of his death.
Early life
Steele was born in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
, United States to a lawyer father and pianist mother. He graduated with a B.A. from
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...
in 1907.
While there, he was a member of the fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall).
He then enrolled in the young
landscape architecture program at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
where
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. was one of his professors. In 1908 Steele left Harvard to accept an apprenticeship with
Warren H. Manning.
Career
In 1913 Steele embarked on a four-month tour of Europe to study European designs. Upon his return to America, he opened his own practice. His early garden plans are generally in the English
Arts and crafts style of
Gertrude Jekyll,
Reginald Blomfield
Sir Reginald Theodore Blomfield (20 December 1856 – 27 December 1942) was a prolific British architect, garden designer and author of the Victorian and Edwardian period.
Early life and career
Blomfield was born at Bow rectory in Devon, w ...
, and
T. H. Mawson, but ornamented with Italianate detailing such as
balustrades,
hedge
A hedge or hedgerow is a line of closely spaced shrubs and sometimes trees, planted and trained to form a barrier or to mark the boundary of an area, such as between neighbouring properties. Hedges that are used to separate a road from adjoin ...
s,
urn
An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...
s, statuary, stone pineapples, and flights of water steps. During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Steele served in the
American Red Cross in Europe. After war's end he regularly returned in summers.
His conversion to an
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
style began in 1925 when he visited the
(the 'Art Deco Exposition') and saw its examples of
cubist
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
gardens with mirrors, concrete and coloured gravel. By 1930 Steele was writing with enthusiasm of
André Vera
André Vera (1881–1971) was a French garden designer, town planner and pioneer of the Art Deco style. He is known for his collaboration with his brother, the painter and decorator Paul Vera. He wanted to renew French design, which he felt had be ...
,
Tony Garnier (architect)
Tony Garnier (13 August 1869 – 19 January 1948) was a noted French architect and city planner. He was most active in his home city of Lyon, where he notably designed the Halle Tony Garnier and Stade de Gerland. Garnier is considered one of ...
, and
Gabriel Guevrekian.
Steele's designs and writings of this period were influential during the stylistic transition from Art Deco to Modernism. He helped shape
Modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
through younger design students at
Harvard, notably
Dan Kiley
Daniel Urban Kiley (2 September 1912 – 21 February 2004) was an American landscape architect, who worked in the style of modern architecture. Kiley designed over one-thousand landscape projects including Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis ...
,
Garrett Eckbo
Garrett Eckbo (November 28, 1910 – May 14, 2000) was an American landscape architect notable for his seminal 1950 book '' Landscape for Living''.
Youth
He was born in Cooperstown, New York to Axel Eckbo, a businessman, and Theodora Munn Eck ...
, and
James C. Rose, to who Steele showed the possibilities of modern art and the creativity inherent within the design process. Kiley later wrote that "Steele was the only good designer working during the twenties and thirties, also the only one who was really interested in new things." Eckbo noted that "Fletcher Steele was the transitional figure between the old guard and the moderns. He interests me because he was an experimenter." Steele's own designs, however, were sufficiently removed from the Modern style so that his works were generally out of fashion until the modern era had passed.
Steele is interred in the
Mount Hope Cemetery in
Rochester, New York
Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
. His papers are archived in the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
, th
Rochester Historical Societyand in th
Franklin Moon Library State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry,
Syracuse, New York.Images from the Steele manuscript collection can be found in th
SUNY D-Space digital repository
Projects
Steele is noted for a number of major works including
Naumkeag
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style ...
,
Peters Reservation,
Ancrum House,
Whitney Allen House,
Standish Backus House,
Turner House,
Lisburne Grange. His most famous work by far is
Naumkeag
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style ...
.
These projects were not all viewed with high regard at the time, and only relatively recently have historians begun to appreciate Steele's impact on garden design and landscape architecture.
Image:Naumkeag (Stockbridge, MA) - Afternoon Garden.JPG, Afternoon Garden, Naumkeag
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style ...
Image:Naumkeag (Stockbridge, MA) - Chinese Garden.JPG, Chinese Garden, Naumkeag
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate and Caroline Dutcher Sterling Choate, located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The estate's centerpiece is a 44-room, Shingle Style ...
Selected writing
* ''Design in the little garden'', Boston, The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1924.
* ''The House beautiful gardening manual; a comprehensive guide, æsthetic and practical, for all garden lovers, both those who are still planning their gardens on paper and those who have had gardening experience, including plant lists compiled with the help of horticulturalists in all sections of the country, and an introductory chapter on garden design by Fletcher Steele'', Boston, The Atlantic monthly press, 1926.
* ''Gardens and people'', Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1964.
References
* Robin Karson, ''Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect: An Account of the Gardenmaker's Life, 1885-1971'', Timber Press, 1989. .
* Robin Karson, ''Fletcher Steele, Landscape Architect: An Account of the Gardenmaker's Life, 1885-1971'', Rev. Ed. Amherst : Library of American Landscape History : Distributed by
University of Massachusetts Press
The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts a ...
, c2003. .
External links and sources
The Fletcher Steele Archives at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and ForestryGoldsmithBirdhouses.comBirdhouse reproduction from Fletcher Steele design
Fletcher Steele at NaumkeagAn online film on Fletcher Steele's designs at Naumkeag in Stockbridge, Massachusetts
Fletcher J. Steele Papersat Williams College Archives & Special Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steele, Fletcher
American landscape architects
American landscape and garden designers
1885 births
1971 deaths
Burials at Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester)
Williams College alumni
Brigham Young University alumni
Landscape design history of the United States
State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry people
Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni
St. Anthony Hall