Tour and History of Curtis Arboretum, HALS Documentation
Thursday, September 19, 2019, 5:00 pm - 8:30 pm
Church Road between Washington Lane & Greenwood Avenue
Wyncote, PA
Participants:
Nancy A. Minich, HTR, RLA, NAM Planning & Design, LLC
Thomas J. Wieckowski, Vice-President of the Old York Road Historical Society, Vice Chair of the Cheltenham Township Historical Commission
Fran Lawn, Program Manager for the Sustainable Business Network’s (SBN) Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) Partners, Friends of Curtis Arboretum
Susan M. Mattison, RLA, ASLA, AICP, LEED AP, Landscape Architecture & Planning
Amy McLean, RLA,MLA, C.T. Male Associates, Albany NY
The Curtis Arboretum Conservation & Landscape Management Plan
Curtis Arboretum in Wyncote, PA, has been the site of a series of significant historic landscapes, plants, events and people over a broad period of time. Curtis Arboretum’s history, revealed its influential owners and series of events and land, uses extensive research by the Township’s historian, who will discuss the illustrious history over several hundred years.
The most significant landscape was designed by the Olmsted Brothers for Cyrus Curtis, the founder of Curtis Publishing and a regional philanthropist. After his death in 1930’s Cyrus’s wife hired the Olmsted Brothers to subdivide the property and offer some land to Cheltenham Township as a public park. The Township has owned Curtis Arboretum as its premier park since. It was not until 2016 that a formal master plan was developed to better support the Township’s needs and interests, bringing it up to date on landscape and stormwater management strategies.
A PowerPoint presentation will provide an overview of the plan. Based on the criteria of the Historic American Landscape Site (HALS), Curtis more than met the four categories for eligibility on the PA HALS sites. A brief review of the HALS documentation process will follow the plan discussion.
The Township has begun to implement the higher-priority projects outlined in The Curtis Arboretum Conservation & Landscape Management Plan through several grants. Porous parking lots and daylighting a headwater stream are some of the landscape projects. The formation of the ‘Friends of Curtis Arboretum’, a Township-appointed resident-committee, oversees implementation of the plan.
Registration begins at 5:00 pm at the Music Hall (the only building on the site). The walk through the park begins promptly at 5:30.
Schedule:
5:00 - 5:30 Registration, Refreshments
5:30 - 6:30 Tour of Curtis Arboretum (Nancy Minich, Amy McLean)
6:30 - 7:00 History of Curtis Arboretum (Tom Wieckowski)
7:00 - 7:30 Refreshments
7:30 - 7:45 HALS documentation information (Susan Mattison)
7:45 - 8:15 Review of Master Plan & HALS documentation (Nancy Minich)
8:15 - 8:30 Implementation of Master Plan (Friends of Curtis)
This event has been approved for 3.0 LA CES PDH, HSW.