| In Space, Style and Structure: Building in Northwest America, Northwest landscape architect Wallace Kay Huntington describes the 1929 founding of the Lord~ Schryver firm as one of the milestones in the history of Northwest garden design. This landscape design firm was comprised of Salem-born Elizabeth Lord (1887-1976) and Edith Schryver (1901-1984), a highly accomplished landscape designer who worked in the New York office of Ellen Shipman in the early 1920s. Both women studied landscape architecture at the Lowthorpe School in Groton, Massachusetts. Lord observed when honored in 1973 that We joined forces, desiring to try out a new venture of real garden designing and planting, domestic and park planting. |
The importance of their landscape design work is underscored with the honor of being the only Oregon firm recognized in Pioneers of Landscape Architecture, published by the National Park Service. Throughout their 40 years of practice, Lord and Schryver designed over 250 gardens throughout the Northwest which included a variety of domestic, civic and institutional landscapes. While their newspaper articles, lectures and memberships in the Salem Garden Club, Portland Garden Club and Garden Club of America helped introduce them to domestic clients, it was Elizabeth Lord's work with the Salem Parks Advisory Board, Salem Tree Committee and Capitol Planning Commision, which helped bring their design work to a civic and governmental audience. |
