Pioneer Information
Brinley and Holbrook, landscape engineers and architects, was founded in 1901 by John Rowlett Brinley and John Swift Holbrook, both graduates of the Columbia University School of Mines. Maintaining offices in Morristown and New York City, Brinley retained the firm name when Holbrook left the firm in 1906. For forty years, the firm specialized in landscape plans for estates, mostly in New Jersey, Connecticut and New York, but also created plans for parks, schools, hospitals, and other institutions throughout the northeast and beyond.
Brinley, who often collaborated with larger offices such as the Olmsted firm, embraced the Picturesque school of landscape design, as seen in projects such as Blythewood in Bernardsville, New Jersey, and Cedar Court in Morris Township, New Jersey. When working individually, however, he tended to use more traditional, formal designs that relied on linear forms and axial relationships. One of the firm’s most noted projects is at Morristown Green, a central square first laid out in the 1600s. Brinley devised a plan of curving walkways and gardens that exists today much as he designed it.
