Rudolph Ulrich

Rudolph Ulrich (1840 – 1906) was born in Weimar, Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. He immigrated to the United States in 1868. Trained as a landscape gardener in Europe, he built a successful career designing and installing gardens and grounds for private and public clients across the United States. Frederick Law Olmsted brought Ulrich in to assist with landscape design at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. He became known for his "Arizona Garden" of desert plants. Leland Stanford subsequently hired Ulrich to create a similar garden at the Stanford estate; additional desert gardens were installed elsewhere in California, including one on the grounds of what is now Sunset Magazine's headquarters. In Santa Cruz, California, Ulrich did landscape design beginning in 1887 for the James Phelan (father of James D. Phelan) summer estate, known as "Phelan Park".