Pioneer Information
Born in Auburn, New York and raised in Gambier, Ohio, Berg attended the University of Pennsylvania, majoring in architecture. Upon earning a B.A. degree in 1971 she relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she worked at The Architects Collaborative (1971-1972) and Harvard University’s Planning Department (1972-1974). From 1976 to 1980 Berg served as a landscape architect for the National Park Service (NPS) and received an M.L.A. degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design in 1977.
Following the establishment of Fairsted in 1979 as an NPS unit known as the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts, Berg was hired as its first manager in 1980, serving until 1986. During her NPS tenure Berg’s broad oversight included the rehabilitation of its Olmsted-designed landscape, and the conservation and cataloging of its vast collections. In 1987 following her NPS tenure she noted in Landscape Architecture, “The magnitude of conservation and cataloging was understood only gradually, and the financial implications are still difficult to pinpoint.”
That same year she established the firm, Shary Page Berg, Landscape Preservation, Planning & Design, authoring numerous landscape surveys (Maine Public Landscapes, 1993; Essex County Parks, MA, 1999; Massachusetts Civilian Conservation Corps Resources, 1998) historic resource nominations (Emerald Necklace Parks Landmark Study, 1989; Mount Greylock National Register Nomination, North Adams, MA, 1997; Buttonwood Park, National Register Nomination, New Bedford, MA, 1999) and cultural landscape assessments and reports (Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA, 1993; Statue of Liberty National Monument, NYC, NY, 1999; Longfellow House, Cambridge. MA, 1999; Charles River Esplanade, Boston, 2007).
As a founding member and trustee of the National and Massachusetts Associations for Olmsted Parks, as well as her many journal and magazine articles, Berg contributed to building awareness and best practices regarding cultural landscapes and landscape preservation.
Berg taught at the Radcliffe Seminars Graduate Program in History & Design (now Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University) for fourteen years and served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Historic Preservation Program at Goucher College.
She became a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1997. Berg retired from practice in 2017 and passed away on December 3, 2024. She was interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, the one landscape that was a constant of her career which she referred to as “her favorite project.”
