Last updated: June 5, 2024
Place
Felsted
Olmsted Archives
Quick Facts
Location:
Deer Isle, ME
Significance:
Olmsted Designed Estate
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
MANAGED BY:
Privately Owned
After a prolific career designing green space across America, Frederick Law Olmsted’s health was deteriorating and his wife, Mary, decided to remove him from his bustling home-office in Brookline, and moved him to Deer Isle, Maine, in a bid to improve his failing health.
Olmsted had already made a trip to England to combat his failing health but became depressed by the dreary English climate. It was Mary who asked her son Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to build the family a summer retirement home.
In 1897, Olmsted Jr. contacted Boston architect William Ralph Emerson, known for his shingle style home designs in Maine, to build Felsted. Emerson’s landscape plan was intended to stimulate Olmsted Sr.’s decreasing mental abilities.
The Olmsted’s spent one single summer at Felsted, at the end of which they were unhappy and Olmsted Sr.’s health continued to deteriorate. After Felsted, the family decided to commit Olmsted Sr. to McLean Hospital, where he would spend the rest of his life, passing away in 1903.
Source: "Felsted, the Frederick Law Olmsted Summer House," Fine Homebuilding
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Olmsted had already made a trip to England to combat his failing health but became depressed by the dreary English climate. It was Mary who asked her son Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to build the family a summer retirement home.
In 1897, Olmsted Jr. contacted Boston architect William Ralph Emerson, known for his shingle style home designs in Maine, to build Felsted. Emerson’s landscape plan was intended to stimulate Olmsted Sr.’s decreasing mental abilities.
The Olmsted’s spent one single summer at Felsted, at the end of which they were unhappy and Olmsted Sr.’s health continued to deteriorate. After Felsted, the family decided to commit Olmsted Sr. to McLean Hospital, where he would spend the rest of his life, passing away in 1903.
Source: "Felsted, the Frederick Law Olmsted Summer House," Fine Homebuilding
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr