Albert Davis Taylor

Albert Davis Taylor
A.D. Taylor in 1937
Born	1883
Died	1951
Nationality	American
Occupation	Landscape architect, author

Albert Davis (“A.D.”) Taylor (1883–1951) was an American landscape architect and author, notable for his many gardens and his promotion of garden shows. He designed parks and other public works, subdivisions and private estates, primarily in Ohio.

Taylor was born in Carlisle, Massachusetts to Nathaniel A. and Ellen F. (Davis) Taylor. He received an A.B. from Boston College in 1905 and an M.L.A. from the College of Agriculture at Cornell University in 1906, where he taught until 1908. He then joined the office of Warren H. Manning, where he was influenced by Manning’s informal and naturalistic approach to landscape design as he worked on such projects as Stan Hywet Hall in Akron.

In 1914 Taylor established his own practice in Cleveland, eventually opening a second office in Florida. His firm provided landscape design for the Van Sweringens’ Daisy Hill Estate in Cleveland, J.J. Emery’s Peterloon Estate in Cincinnati, the H.H. Timken Estate in Canton, and Julius Fleischmann’s Winding Creek Farm. The office also designed the Avondale subdivision in Akron and the Rookwood subdivision in Cincinnati. During the Depression, Taylor participated in a number of CWA projects. The following is a partial list of public works on which his firm worked:

Taylor helped found the landscape architecture program at Ohio State University and served as a non-resident professor in the program from 1916 to 1926. Notable among Taylor's many publications was his 1921 book, The Complete Garden. During the New Deal, Taylor was a consultant for the U.S. Forest Service, conducting a needs and requirements survey of the national forests in 1936. Increasing public use of national forests made it necessary to reevaluate the standard of landscape design throughout the system in an effort to preserve the natural aspects of the forest, while accommodating their use. Taylor's papers (1918–1942) are archived at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan.