Genius in the Garden

Genius in the Garden: Charles F. Gillette and Landscape Architecture in Virginia

George C. Longest

251 pages, 74 color and 57 black-and-white illustrations
1992. ISBN 0-88490-172-6 $39.95

From the 1920s through the 1960s, the name Charles F. Gillette was synonymous with the best in landscape design in Virginia and the upper South. Famous for landscaping hundreds of Virginia's suburban estates, Gillette also undertook numerous large-scale educational, corporate, and government projects, leaving his unique imprint on public as well as private space. George Longest unravels the process through which Gillette established a distinctive regional style and set a tradition of quality and professionalism that became the standard in his field.

"Interesting both as a social document of turn-of-the-century America and as a biography of a designer and a description of the elegant gardens he made."—American Horticulturist