Huntsman-Trout, Edward, 1889-1974

Edward Huntsman-Trout was born in Ontario, Canada, on July 31, 1889; graduated, UC Berkeley, 1913; attended Harvard School of Landscape Architecture, 1913-15; worked in the offices of Fletcher Steele, Boston, (1916), A.D. Taylor of Cleveland, OH (1917-22), and Rodeo Land and Water Company, Los Angeles, before engaging in practice under his own name; became a member of ASLA, 1920; named an ASLA fellow, 1933; died, 1974.

Biography

Edward Huntsman-Trout was born in Ontario, Canada, on July 31, 1889; graduated, University of California at Berkeley, 1913; attended Harvard School of Landscape Architecture, 1913-15; worked in the offices of Fletcher Steele, Boston, (1916), A.D. Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio (1917-22), and Rodeo Land and Water Company, Los Angeles, before engaging in practice under his own name; became a member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), 1920; named an ASLA fellow, 1933; died, 1974.

Biographical Narrative

Edward Huntsman-Trout's career as a landscape architect spans the years 1932-1971. He was born in Ontario, Canada, on July 31, 1989, and following his graduation from the University of California in 1913, attended the Harvard University School of Landscape Architecture from 1913 to 1915. Before engaging in the practice of landscape architecture under his own name, he worked in the offices of Fletcher Steele, landscape architect, in Boston, 1916, and A.D. Taylor of cleveland, Ohio, 1917-22, and was employed as a landscape designer for Rodeo Land and Water Company, Los Angeles.

The collection of his papers consists, for the most part, of his tissue designs and blueprints for many prominent residences in the Souther California area, as well as a considerable body of institutional planning. Some of his more notable clients include Bing Crosby, Robert Young and Harvey Mudd, the last of whom retained him to work also on Scripps College in Claremont. Paul Trousdale, the noted Beverly Hills developer, employed him on his Trousdale Estates as well as on several other development projects, in both Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. His early work included the planning of actual structures with original designs for gates, lamps, fountains, etc., as well as their surrounding grounds, but as his career progressed, he confined himself almost entirely to landscape design.

Among his more notable institutional projects is the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum, located in Arcadia. Of special interest here is his work on the Hugo Reid Adobe House, first built in the mid-Nineteenth Century, and restored during the Arboretum Project amid some controversy as to its original structure. Other significant projects include Pershing Square and Lafayette Park.

There is little correspondence in the collection, and what there is deals almost exclusively with discussions between Huntsman-Trout and his clients on various aspects of the project in question.