Arthur Shurcliff's Landscape Proposals for Carter's Grove

Arthur Shurcliff's Landscape Proposals for Carter's Grove

Shurcliff, Arthur A. (Arthur Asahel), 1870-1957

Landscape drawings - Virginia - Williamsburg

Carter's Grove (Va.)

Arthur A. Shurcliff [ne Shurtleff] (1870 – 1957) was the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s first landscape architect. A student of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., considered the father of landscape architecture in America, Shurcliff’s Williamsburg gardens are recognized as consummate examples of the Colonial Revival style.

Arthur Shurcliff arrived in Williamsburg in 1928 to join the Williamsburg office of architects Perry, Shaw and Hepburn. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Shurcliff worked in the office of well-known landscape architects, Charles W. Eliot and Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. in Brookline, Massachusetts between 1896-1905. He then opened his own landscape design practice and received commissions for many landscape projects in Boston, such as the grounds of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Charles River Esplanade, and the Franklin Park Zoo. Between 1928 and 1941, Shurcliff oversaw the planning and layout of gardens at Colonial Williamsburg, as well as of traffic patterns, parking, and street curb design, and continued to advise in a consultant capacity until just before his death in 1957.

Shurcliff, Arthur A.

Special Collections, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.