Beatrix Farrand: Yale’s First Landscape Architect

This portrait of Beatrix Farrand (1872-1959) was published on the cover of Reef Point Gardens Bulletin, circa 1930-1940.

Considered the finest woman landscape architect of her generation, Farrand was the niece of Edith Wharton and the wife of Yale professor Max Farrand. Her appointment in 1922 was the first time the university employed a woman in such a position of authority, and she served in it until 1944. Envisioning the entire campus as a type of botanic garden, or “outdoor museum,” Farrand landscaped all the grounds of subsequent new buildings, including the residential colleges, the divinity school, the medical school, and the garden of the President’s House on Hillhouse Avenue. She developed a unique landscaping feature, the garden moat. Set in the walled spaces primarily designed to safeguard basement windows, these moats created a canopy for the sidewalk.

Selin Couryard, circa 1970-1990

Beatrix Farrand designed the landscaping for Sterling Memorial Library's Selin Courtyard from 1927–1934 (images at right and below). The utilitarian purpose of the court was to provide light to the interior. Farrand in her own words wanted to create “a pleasant place for out-of-door reading and mental refreshment.” To bring out “this impression of restfulness,” she selected mainly hardy evergreens, “harmonizing in color and texture… placed in groups so that the views from the windows looking into the court would be pleasant at all times of the year.”

Below is Farrand’s landscape plan for Selin Courtyard as drawn by the office of architect James Gamble Rogers:

Farrand’s landscape plan for Selin Courtyard, April 7, 1930

Beatrix Farrand created the landscaping plan for the War Memorial, dedicated in 1927, in Hewitt Quadrangle. The landscaping of this area of the Yale campus was altered significantly in the early 1960s with the construction of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The Yale Alumni War Memorial in Hewitt Quadrangle, before 1961

The tulip garden in the Marsh Botanical Gardens with the rear of Marsh Hall in the background, late 1920s.

Farrand viewed her work in New Haven as a unique opportunity due to its location at the southern tip of New England. To obtain better value and variety she started a nursery, with 1,500 plants, in the fall of 1923, which was the first time that this kind of operation was undertaken on a university campus. Occupying the greenhouse adjacent to Marsh Hall, the former estate of Professor Othniel C. Marsh, the garden, which Farrand designed from 1924-1927, was modeled after the earliest botanic garden in Europe, located in Padua, Italy. At its height in the 1930s and early 1940s, the garden drew thousands of visitors annually. Farrand’s garden is incorporated into today’s Marsh Botanical Garden, and in 2020 plans were underway at Yale to restore her original gardens to honor her legacy.