John Noyes

Born in Roslindale, Massachusetts, Noyes attended Massachusetts Agricultural College (now University of Massachusetts), where he was instructed by Frank Waugh. Noyes graduated in 1909 with a B.S in landscape architecture and engineering and remained at the college to teach landscape architecture until 1911. He worked with practitioners such as Jens Jensen, George Kessler, and Warren Manning and in 1913was hired as an instructor at the Shaw School of Botany at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. From 1914 to 1935 he served as the garden’s landscape architect, overseeing the addition of the Palm, Desert, Mediterranean, and Floral Display Houses, the Italian and Perennial Gardens, the Knolls, and several other features. He additionally created St. Louis’ first rose garden, with rare specimens garnered from the Arnold Arboretum. From 1915 to 1922 Noyes studied architecture at the St. Louis Architectural Club. He opened a private office in early 1918, but left to serve as an Assistant Town Planner for the U.S Housing Corporation during World War I. He returned to private practice in 1921, designing subdivisions, country clubs, parks, school campuses, and residential estates. In the early 1920s the Botanical Garden sold 50 acres located on the western portion of its site to be subdivided for single family housing, which Noyes planned in 1924. The funds raised from the sale were used to purchase a large tract in Gray Summit, Missouri (now Shaw Nature Reserve) for which Noyes provided the master plan. He became a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1936. During World War II he worked with the Federal Public Housing Authority (FPHA), designing and planning housing projects. Noyes retired in 1953 and moved to Cheshire, Connecticut, where he passed away in 1960.