Last updated: June 8, 2024
Place
Moraine Farm
Olmsted Archives
Quick Facts
Location:
Beverly, MA
Significance:
Olmsted Designed Landscape
MANAGED BY:
In 1880, Frederick Law Olmsted was commissioned to design over two hundred acres of depleted farmland for businessman John Charles Phillips. Instead of a well decorated country estate, Olmsted urged Phillips to use the surrounding landscape to his advantage, enhancing the natural beauty of nearby woodlands, meadows, and bodies of water.
Collaborating with Peabody and Stearns, the Boston architects Phillips had chosen to build his mansion, Olmsted created a massive stone terrace overlooking Lake Wenham. In addition to lawns, hedges, rustic stone walls and a magnificent meadow, Olmsted integrated the latest advances in scientific farming and forest management.
Just like in Back Bay, where Olmsted suggested the inclusion of Fens in the name, which described what the landscape was previously like, he left something in the name for Phillips. Olmsted suggested Moraine as the name for the estate, which in geology, is a ridge of glacial debris. Using the moraine as an elevated vantage, Olmsted created paths and carriage drives that looped through the seventy-five acres of forest, providing views of the lake and meadow.
Source: "Moraine Farm," The Cultural Landscape Foundation
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Olmsted Online
Collaborating with Peabody and Stearns, the Boston architects Phillips had chosen to build his mansion, Olmsted created a massive stone terrace overlooking Lake Wenham. In addition to lawns, hedges, rustic stone walls and a magnificent meadow, Olmsted integrated the latest advances in scientific farming and forest management.
Just like in Back Bay, where Olmsted suggested the inclusion of Fens in the name, which described what the landscape was previously like, he left something in the name for Phillips. Olmsted suggested Moraine as the name for the estate, which in geology, is a ridge of glacial debris. Using the moraine as an elevated vantage, Olmsted created paths and carriage drives that looped through the seventy-five acres of forest, providing views of the lake and meadow.
Source: "Moraine Farm," The Cultural Landscape Foundation
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Olmsted Online