Frederick Olmsted Jr. and Charles Cheney

Frederick Olmsted Jr. and Charles Cheney

Born in 1870,Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. was the son of the Central Park architect Frederick Law Olmsted. He took over the firm together with his stepbrother, John Charles Olmsted, when his father died in 1895, renaming it Olmsted Brothers.

Frederick had two substantial impacts on the planning of the South Bay.

The original developer of the City of Torrance, Jared Sydney Torrance, engaged him to create a master plan of the city in 1911. Olmsted€™s overall Torrance plan was innovative for its time. It divided the original town into three districts: the business district at the city€™s core, which we know now as Old Torrance, the industrial district to the north and east of the city core, and the residential district to the west.

Frederick Olmstead, Jr.

Perhaps Frederick€™s most influential impact was in his firm€™s ground breaking landscape design for the City of Palos Verdes Estates. They laid out Palos Verdes Estates€™ roadways and prepared the landscape design for Malaga Cove Library, Malaga Cove School, and the La Venta Inn. Over 10,000 trees and shrubs were planted during the early days of development. To promote landscaping by the new homeowners, a large nursery was created in Lunada Bay to sell plants at cost. Mr. Olmsted also decided to make the Peninsula his permanent home and became the first person in Palos Verdes to build directly upon the edge of the bluffs on Rosita Place.

The most impressive part of his designs for Palos Verdes Estates was his design for the entrance to Palos Verdes Estates from Redondo Beach on Palos Verdes Drive. The sweeping flow of the drive into the city seems to bring the visitor into another world of lush landscaping and eucalyptus trees

The resulting Malaga Cove Plaza and surrounding area remains one of the most beautiful urban locations in the South Bay to this day. In 2000, a small parcel of parkland was created in Olmsted€™s honor in the Plaza and named Olmsted Place.

The overall master plan for Palos Verdes Estates was developed by Charles Henry Cheney, an architect and city planner. This was one of the earliest examples of a master planned community. More than 120 miles of paved roads were drawn into the plans. Over 4,000 acres were reserved for parks and playgrounds and recreational areas . Even 1,000 acres were set aside for a university campus that was included in a proposal for the new UCLA campus. Mr. Cheney also developed the deed restrictions which still govern architectural standards in the city through it€™s Art Jury. Mr. Cheney was also a consultant to the city planning commissions for the cities of Fresno, Berkeley, Palos Alto, Turlock and San Rafael.

For more South Bay History and Palos Verdes History, see my web page http://www.southbayhistory.com