James Leal Greenleaf

James Leal Greenleaf (July 30, 1857 – April 15, 1933) was an American landscape architect and civil engineer. Early in his career, he was a well-known landscape architect who designed the gardens and grounds of many large estates in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. He was appointed to the United States Commission of Fine Arts in 1918, and served until 1927. He was the landscape architect for the Lincoln Memorial (finished in 1922), and a consulting landscape architect for the Arlington Memorial Bridge (designed in 1925 and finished in 1932).

Early life

Greenleaf was born in 1857 in Kortright, New York. His father, Thomas Greenleaf, was a member of the prominent Greenleaf merchant family, but had retired to Kortright due to failing health. His mother, Eleanor Leal, was of Dutch and Scottish descent. He was the fourth of five children, and the only son, born to Thomas and Eleanor. His great-grandfather, Thomas, was the founder and editor of Greenleaf's New Daily Advertiser. He was a distant relative of James Greenleaf, the infamous Washington, D.C., land speculator and whose sister married Noah Webster (whose newspaper later merged with the New Daily Advertiser). Greenleaf later credited his childhood in the Catskill Mountains for giving him a love of landscape architecture. Working primarily on Long Island and in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Westchester County, he designed estates for Frederick William Vanderbilt ("Hyde Park" in Hyde Park, New York), C. Ledyard Blair ("Blairsden" in Peapack-Gladstone, New Jersey), Mortimer L. Schiff ("Northwood" in Oyster Bay, New York), and a number of estates for the Pratt family: Pratt Oval (Charles Pratt), The Braes (Herbert L. Pratt), Welwyn (Harold I. Pratt) The Manor House (John Teele Pratt), Killenworth is considered his greatest achievement.

President Woodrow Wilson appointed Greenleaf to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts in 1918. He served on this body, which had statutory approval authority over the design and siting of memorials and monuments in Washington, D.C., as well as advisory authority over building design in the city, until 1927. After World War I, he authored the landscape design for seven American battlefield cemeteries in France and Belgium: Aisne-Marne American Cemetery and Memorial, Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial, Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, Oise-Aisne American Cemetery and Memorial, Somme American Cemetery and Memorial, St. Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial, and Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial. They had a son, Donald Leal Greenleaf, born June 5, 1890.