Clarke, Lewis J. (Lewis James), 1927-

Lewis James Clarke was born in Carlton, Nottingham, England on 10 March 1927. He earned his Masters in Architecture at the University of Leicester and his Masters in Landscape Design from Kings College, University of Durham. Clarke received a Fulbright Scholarship and a Smith-Mundt Award to attend Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design to pursue his studies in Landscape Architecture and he graduated in 1952. In the fall of 1952, Henry L. Kamphoefner, founding dean of the North Carolina State College School of Design (SOD), hired Clarke as an associate professor. Clarke remained a part of the faculty until 1968. In addition to teaching at SOD, Clarke taught at the University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, University of Toronto, Michigan State University, Louisiana State University, and the University of California at Berkeley.

Clarke formally opened his firm, Lewis Clarke Associates, in 1968 and over the years received excellence awards from the American Society of Landscape Architecture, the American Institute of Architects, Progressive Architecture, and the American Nurserymen Association. His work includes community colleges in North Carolina and Virginia and prototype enclosed mall projects. He created the original master plan for the Research Triangle Institute; Saint Andrews College, Laurinburg, North Carolina; and the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro. Clarke also completed a substantial amount of work in the area of residential resort master planning. His signature works include Palmetto Dunes, Hilton Head Island; Carolina Trace, Sanford, North Carolina; and Ford’s Colony, Williamsburg, Virginia. In 1980 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.