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8. The Neighborhood Context
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199 Eight The Neighborhood Context To understand fully the deep impact that the Olmsted family and firm had in the development of Brookline at large, we need to consider the microcosm of the Fairsted neighborhood in which they chose to live and work. Here they interacted with neighbors, many of whom sought their professional services, while others contributed to the knowledge and experience of the Olmsted office. (figs. 8.1 and 8.2) Few other areas of the town would have been more receptive or responsive to the professional and personal interests of the Olmsteds. And few other towns would have been as eager for their advice and expertise or as useful in providing a continuous stream of lucrative clients. In moving to Brookline, they entered a world of social and economic privilege that was typical of other members of the professional class there. They joined The Country Club in 1882, when it was founded as the first such organization in the nation.1 They achieved listing in the Boston edition of the Social Register from its first publication in 1890 onward.2 In short, the Olmsted family and firm members became part of the social network they served and whose properties they shaped. By moving to 99 Warren Street, Frederick Law Olmsted also established himself in the most historic section of Brookline. The First Parish Church—the religious and governmental focus of the community throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries—stood at the top of the hill at the intersection of Walnut and Warren streets (see chapter 7). Most of the surrounding territory was originally divided into large land grants, from south to north, for Thomas Oliver (1638 and 1641), Thomas Leverett (1638 and 1641), and the Reverend John Cotton (1638), all representative of the acquisition of Brookline farmland by key figures in the Massachusetts Bay Company.3 In 1667 these large parcels, among the largest in the community, remained intact, now owned by John White, Thomas Gard- 200 V COM MUNITY BY DESIGN ner, and the heirs of John Cotton, respectively. By 1693 the White lands had been divided between John and Benjamin White; the Gardner lands were partitioned among Joshua, Thomas, and Andrew Gardner, with smaller sections acquired by Thomas Boylston and John White; while the heirs of John Cotton still retained all of the original grant. This central core near where the meetinghouse would be built in 1711 had thus become an area of agricultural estates of substantial size. After the establishment of the town of Brookline in 1705 and the erection Fig. 8.1. Properties in the Green Hill neighborhood where the Olmsted firm worked 1880– 1900. Map by Eliza McClellen. [54.173.214.79] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 03:22 GMT) the neighborhood context V 201 of the meetinghouse, the land around this community focal point became more desirable and valuable. By 1747 the number of landholders had been expanded, although the number of families owning land remained relatively small. Samuel Clark had acquired the property previously owned by John White. The Reverend James Allen held a narrow, long parcel adjacent to the town land where the meetinghouse stood. The Gardner and Boylston families shared the land farther north and west. This ownership pattern was only slightly modified by 1796, when the Fig. 8.2. Properties in the Green Hill neighborhood where the Olmsted firm worked, 1901–36. Map by Eliza McClellen. 202 V COM MUNITY BY DESIGN long-term subsistence agricultural patterns of Brookline began to be challenged by new arrivals from Boston and beyond. As detailed by Tamara Thornton in Cultivating Gentlemen, the invasion of Brookline by wealthy merchants intent on creating summer country residences for experimental agriculture and horticulture began in the period following the American Revolution and had become a marked phenomenon in the federal period. Important for the Fairsted area was the purchase by Richard Sullivan of the former Fig. 8.3. Plan of the Sargent-Codman estate as drawn by students of engineering at MIT, 1885. Courtesy National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site. the neighborhood context V 203 Gardner-Hyslop estate at the top of the hill, north of the meetinghouse. Sullivan, one of the most energetic and loyal members of the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, was the leading figure of a small colony of newcomers in the neighborhood of the meetinghouse.4 Another concentration of wealthy outsiders who sought country estates where they could enjoy the pleasures of the soil was...