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for James Leal Greenleaf
American, 1857 - 1933
James L. Greenleaf studied civil engineering at Columbia University School of Mines, New York, graduating in 1880. That year, under General W. P. Trowbridge, head of the School of Mines, he made a survey of the water power and machinery in the district between Niagara Falls and the Mississippi River for the Tenth United States Survey. He then taught civil engineering at Columbia from 1881 to 1894, at which time he established a private practice.
In the late 1890s Greenleaf turned to landscape architecture, maintaining his office in New York. He laid out the grounds for such important estates as those of George D. Pratt and H. L. Pratt, both in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York; William K. Vanderbilt, Hyde Park, New York; C. Ledyard Blair, Bernardsville, New Jersey; Jacob H. Schiff, Red Bank, New Jersey; Mortimer Schiff, Oyster Bay, New York; and Hobart Park, Purchase, New York.
From 1918 to 1927 Greenleaf was a member of the National Commission of Fine Arts and in that capacity supervised the landscaping of cemeteries of American war dead in France and was much involved in planning the grounds surrounding the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He retired from active practice in the late 1920s, but in 1931-32 he served as the consulting landscape architect for the Arlington Memorial Bridge, spanning the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial to the approach to Arlington National Cemetery.
Greenleaf was president of the American Society of Landscape Architects from 1924 to 1927. He also served on juries of the American Academy in Rome in landscape architecture prize competitions. In the early 1930s, shortly before he died, he turned to landscape painting. Although he considered this a pastime, his work was shown in Academy annual exhibitions; his subjects came from his travels to Italy, the Isle of Skye, and Ogunquit, Maine.
In the late 1890s Greenleaf turned to landscape architecture, maintaining his office in New York. He laid out the grounds for such important estates as those of George D. Pratt and H. L. Pratt, both in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York; William K. Vanderbilt, Hyde Park, New York; C. Ledyard Blair, Bernardsville, New Jersey; Jacob H. Schiff, Red Bank, New Jersey; Mortimer Schiff, Oyster Bay, New York; and Hobart Park, Purchase, New York.
From 1918 to 1927 Greenleaf was a member of the National Commission of Fine Arts and in that capacity supervised the landscaping of cemeteries of American war dead in France and was much involved in planning the grounds surrounding the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He retired from active practice in the late 1920s, but in 1931-32 he served as the consulting landscape architect for the Arlington Memorial Bridge, spanning the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial to the approach to Arlington National Cemetery.
Greenleaf was president of the American Society of Landscape Architects from 1924 to 1927. He also served on juries of the American Academy in Rome in landscape architecture prize competitions. In the early 1930s, shortly before he died, he turned to landscape painting. Although he considered this a pastime, his work was shown in Academy annual exhibitions; his subjects came from his travels to Italy, the Isle of Skye, and Ogunquit, Maine.
