These elements contribute to the historical significance and value of a residence. While this process is ideally applied to an entire landscape, it can address a single feature such as a perennial flower garden, water feature or a path. When choosing a designer to assist with the preservation, restoration, renovation or modification of a historic designed landscape, seek out individuals or firms whose background includes a broad education in the liberal arts, landscape architectural training, and related project experience. A professional with a background in landscape architectural history, historic preservation, archival and field research, horticulture, cultural and physical geography, architecture and allied arts, and management can best direct efforts on the scale of individual gardens to entire estates. Additional guidance may be obtained from State Historic Preservation Offices, local preservation commissions, and the National Park Service.
Archival searches are invaluable.
Local, regional, and national searches are often required to objectively establish and verify original design intent. For the recent renovation of a North Seattle estate, Pascoe Design conducted a search at the Puget Sound Regional Archives and discovered tax record photographs taken during the Works Progress Administration in 1937. Another search at the Smithsonian Archives of American Gardens furnished an article documenting a 1930 Garden Club of America garden tour taken two years after the initial construction of the garden. This data also provides an objective datum for decision-making when undertaking restoration, renovation or modification, and inform a maintenance schedule, historic interpretation and compliance with local and state preservation requirements if you are seeking a protected status of historic designed landscape. Secondary sources include monographs, published histories, theses, National Register forms, survey data, local preservation plans, state contexts and scholarly articles.