John Fletcher Steele (June 7, 1885 – July 16, 1971) was an
American landscape architect
A landscape architect is a person who is educated in the field of landscape architecture. The practice of landscape architecture includes: site analysis, site inventory, site planning, land planning, planting design, grading, storm water manage ...
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 and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...
, United States to a lawyer father and pianist mother. He graduated with a B.A. from
Williams College
Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...
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
Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor areas, landmarks, and structures to achieve environmental, social-behavioural, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic design and general engineering of various structures for constructio ...
program at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
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
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...
style of
Gertrude Jekyll,
Reginald Blomfield, and
T. H. Mawson, but ornamented with Italianate detailing such as
balustrades,
hedges,
urns, statuary, stone pineapples, and flights of water steps. During
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, Steele served in the
American Red Cross
The American National Red Cross is a Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Humanitarianism, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief, and disaster preparedness education in the United States. Clara Barton founded ...
in Europe. After war's end he regularly returned in summers.
His conversion to an
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
style began in 1925 when he visited the
Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (the 'Art Deco Exposition') and saw its examples of
cubist gardens with mirrors, concrete and coloured gravel. By 1930 Steele was writing with enthusiasm of
André Vera,
Tony Garnier (architect), 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 was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
through younger design students at
Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
, notably
Dan Kiley,
Garrett Eckbo, 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 was based in Boston for more than 50 years. In pursuit of his career he traveled by train extensively in the United States. Toward the end of his life, he lived in
Pittsford, New York. The local library there has a Fletcher Steele Room and books on display from his private collection.
Steele is interred in the
Mount Hope Cemetery in
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in and the county seat, seat of government of Monroe County, New York, United States. It is the List of municipalities in New York, fourth-most populous city and 10th most-populated municipality in New York, with a populati ...
. His papers are archived in the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
, th
Rochester Historical Societyand in th
Franklin Moon Library State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry,
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States. With a population of 148,620 and a Syracuse metropolitan area, metropolitan area of 662,057, it is the fifth-most populated city and 13 ...
. 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,
Peters Reservation,
Ancrum House,
Whitney Allen House,
Standish Backus House,
Turner House,
Lisburne Grange. His most famous work by far is
Naumkeag.
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.
According to Robin Karson's 1991 book about Steele's life and his landscape architecture, the only two of his gardens that remain in existence (as originally created) are at Naumkeag and at the
Whitney Allen House. However, Melissa McGrain, with the support of her husband Andrew Stern, bought the estate containing Nancy and Richard Turner's house in
Pittsford, New York and did excellent work in restoring the garden that Steele designed and developed for the Turners.
Image:Naumkeag (Stockbridge, MA) - Afternoon Garden.JPG, Afternoon Garden, Naumkeag
Image:Naumkeag (Stockbridge, MA) - Chinese Garden.JPG, Chinese Garden, Naumkeag
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. .
**
p. 453* Robin Karson
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 press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...
, 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
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