Last updated: June 7, 2024
Place
Lake Wauconda
Olmsted Archives
Quick Facts
Location:
Perry Park, CO
Significance:
Olmsted Designed Suburban Community
MANAGED BY:
Frederick Law Olmsted was hired by the Redstone Town Land & Mining Company in 1889 to prepare a plan for a lakeside village in Perry Park, Colorado. Writing in his Preliminary Plan, Olmsted recognized that “the distant landscape is not only sublime in its vastness, but full of delicate ethereal beauty”. Olmsted was faced with the challenge of designing a community in a dry mountainous region lacking proper irrigation.
Developers didn’t give up and gave the community their water source by damming Bear Creek and creating Lake Wauconda, which is also what they wanted to name their subdivision. Despite planning around large formations of stones which dominated the landscape and sketching several designs, Lake Wauconda subdivision never came to be. Ownership was passed around until the area was developed as a resort community.
Source: "Lake Wauconda," Olmsted Online
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Developers didn’t give up and gave the community their water source by damming Bear Creek and creating Lake Wauconda, which is also what they wanted to name their subdivision. Despite planning around large formations of stones which dominated the landscape and sketching several designs, Lake Wauconda subdivision never came to be. Ownership was passed around until the area was developed as a resort community.
Source: "Lake Wauconda," Olmsted Online
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr