Last updated: June 11, 2024
Place
Rosemary Farm
Olmsted Archives
Quick Facts
Location:
Huntington, NY
Significance:
Olmsted Designed Estate
MANAGED BY:
Privately Owned
Kansas City, Missouri based entrepreneur and financier Roland Ray Conklin moved back to his ancestral home of Huntington, New York, purchasing significant acreage in 1893 to build his estate, which he called Rosemary Farm. It wasn’t until 1912, that Conklin asked Olmsted Brothers to transform a sloping bowl on their property into an amphitheater, with semi-circular, turf-covered tiers to seat an audience of nearly three thousand.
Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. took lead on the complicated engineering project, which Conklin envisioned would be an attractive landscape feature when not used for performances. In addition to the difficult engineering, the significant financing put a strain on Olmsted Jr., who saw this as a problematic commission.
Conklin took Olmsted Brothers’ plans and chose to construct the amphitheater on his own, with Olmsted Jr. occasionally providing consultation, however Olmsted Jr. did not approve of Conklin’s material selection. After the death of his wife in 1919, Conklin sold the property to the Brooklyn Diocese, who built the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception on the grounds in 1924.
Source: "Seminary of the Immaculate Conception," The Cultural Landscape Foundation
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. took lead on the complicated engineering project, which Conklin envisioned would be an attractive landscape feature when not used for performances. In addition to the difficult engineering, the significant financing put a strain on Olmsted Jr., who saw this as a problematic commission.
Conklin took Olmsted Brothers’ plans and chose to construct the amphitheater on his own, with Olmsted Jr. occasionally providing consultation, however Olmsted Jr. did not approve of Conklin’s material selection. After the death of his wife in 1919, Conklin sold the property to the Brooklyn Diocese, who built the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception on the grounds in 1924.
Source: "Seminary of the Immaculate Conception," The Cultural Landscape Foundation
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr