Roland Park

Following the previous work of George Kessler, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. became involved in the development of Roland Park, one of the country’s early “garden suburbs.” Hired by Edward Bouton, the president of the Roland Park Company, the Olmsted Brothers joined the project in 1897 and worked with the company for many decades. The Baltimore district included over 2,000 homes, for which the Olmsted Firm was appointed to design the layout, landscapes, and parkways. Discussing the plantings and design of the gateway to Roland Park, the firm stated it would be best “to confine the architectural work to smaller dimensions…so as to expose to view a scheme of formal decorative planting to be carried out the sides of the entrance…the plantings which we have in mind would be largely composed of evergreen plants…and various other deciduous plants.” [Olmsted Brothers to H.E. Bouton_1899-11-25_LOC-OAR-B_02210-im.9]

The Roland name is now tainted as correspondence came to light in 2010 revealing Mr. Bouton took purposeful action to exclude African American’s from purchasing homes in his developed communities.