Percival Gallagher

Percival Gallagher

Quick Facts

Significance:

Partner at the Olmsted Firm

Place of Birth:

South Boston, MA

Date of Birth:

August 8, 1874

Date of Death:

1934

Notable Projects while at the Olmsted Firm:
J.E. Aldred Estate, "Ormstom", Glen Cove, New York
Hugh Langdon Estate, "Oldfields", Indianapolis, Indiana
H.H. Rogers Estate, Glen Cove, New York
League Island Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Beginning in 1894, with substantial training in horticulture but no advanced design degrees, Gallagher spent almost his entire career at the Olmsted firm. Between 1904-1906 he left to form his own firm in partnership with another Olmsted alumnus James Sturgis Pray, but tiring of the administrative burden involved, he returned to the Olmsted Brothers’ firm in 1906, becoming an associate partner and remained until his death.  Gallagher had an affable personality and a keen artistic aptitude for visualizing planting arrangements through the seasons and from several points of view.

These skills were invaluable in his distinctive designs for large estate projects on Long Island and around Philadelphia, where he employed an unusually wide array of flowers and shrubs. In collaboration with others, he made major contributions to successful designs for parks, park systems, arboreta and academic campuses, including consulting on landscape design issues at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Swarthmore, Vassar, Duke, and Phillips Academy in Andover. Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. commented upon his skill in “solving special problems,” thus calling out his ability to approach creatively the kinds of compromises that designs for institutional settings must often address.