Peets, Elbert, 1886-1968

Landscape architect, city planner.

Elbert Peets received his B.A. from Western Reserve University and his M.L.A. from the Harvard University School of Landscape Architecture and City Planning. He worked for Pray, Hubbard and White, Boston landscape architects, for a year before joining with Werner Hegemann to plan Kohler, a company town founded by Walter S. Kohler, near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Peets and Hegemann also collaborated in the planning of Washington Highlands, a subdivision in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; of Wyomissing Park, a subdivision in Reading, Pennsylvania; and in the writing of THE AMERICAN VITRUVIUS: AN ARCHITECT'S HANDBOOK OF CIVIC ART (1922). From 1923-1935 Peets worked in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio. He also worked on the planning for Greendale (near Milwaukee), one of three greenbelt towns built by the U.S. Farm Resettlement Administration headed by Rexford Guy Tugwell under Franklin D. Roosevelt. From 1938-1944 he was Chief of the Site Planning Section of the U.S. Housing Authority. With the firm of Loebl, Schlossman & Bennett, he participated in the planning for the town of Park Forest (near Chicago, Illinois), a project initiated by Nathan Manilow, Treasurer of American Community Builders, Inc., and Philip Klutznick, President. In the 1950s, Peets was a member of the Fine Arts Commission and served as consultant to the National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

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