The Olmsted Garden

After the death of Mrs. Ada Gerrish Cummer, the Cummer family estate was divided between her two sons, Waldo and Arthur. Their sister, Mabel Cummer Roe, and her husband, John, built a home on nearby Stockton Street.

Waldo and his wife, Clara, engaged William Lyman Phillips from the Lake Wales office of the Olmsted Brothers firm to design and reshape their expanded property, uniting new and existing elements such as plantings and structural elements as well as amenities and ornaments. Phillips, a renowned landscape architect in Florida, designed Jacksonville's Memorial Park (just a few steps south from The Cummer on Riverside Avenue) and the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami.

While Waldo and Clara were busy at work with Phillips, Ninah May Holden Cummer and Arthur Cummer were hard at work with another renowned American landscape architect, Ellen Biddle Shipman, planning their Italian Garden. Taken as a whole, the gardens of Mr. and Mrs. Waldo Cummer and Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Cummer represent an exceptional glimpse into the history of American landscape architecture.

The Cummer grounds are uniquely important to the people of Florida, residents of the Southeast, and the history of landscape architecture in our country. Restoration of the Olmsted Garden is currently underway.