Bryant Fleming

Who was Bryant Fleming?

Bryant Fleming was a Buffalo, New York-born landscape architect. He graduated from Cornell University in 1901, where he studied horticulture, architecture, architectural history, and art. In 1904, Fleming became the first lecturer and instructor in landscape art in the Department of Landscape Art in the College of Agriculture at Cornell, the third such program in the United States after Harvard and the University of Massachusetts. He served as head of the department from 1906–1915 and in 1925 was appointed as University Landscape Advisor to Cornell.

In 1904 he established a private practice named Townsend and Fleming. He helped guide the development of parks in New York State, including Letchworth State Park and the restoration of Watkins Glen State Park, Fair Haven Beach State Park, Fillmore Glen State Park, Robert H. Treman State Park, Taughannock Falls State Park, Cedar Point State Park, Kring Point State Park, and Waterson Point State Park. In addition, he served with Warren H. Manning and others on a comprehensive campus plan for Cornell. For 30 years Fleming and his associates had an extensive residential design practice all over the country, including estates in Belle Meade, Tennessee, and the design of Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, a 100-acre estate where Fleming guided the design of the landscape, architecture, and interiors. Active in the profession as a teacher and mentor, he died on September 19, 1946.