Charles Scott Riley

Quick Facts

Significance:

Partner in Olmsted Firm

Place of Birth:

Cincinatti, OH

Date of Birth:

1909

Date of Death:

1966

Notable Projects designed while at the Olmsted Firm:
University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi
National Life Insurance Company, Montpelier, Vermont
Berkshire Life Insurance Company, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, Massachusetts
 

Charles Scott Riley received his landscape architecture degree in 1934 from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He began his career in public service positions as senior landscape foreman with the Civilian Conservation Corps and as landscape supervisor of construction with the United States Housing Authority. Then, he spent 10 years in private practice from 1937 and 1947, first in Cincinnati, Ohio and later in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. In 1947 Riley began working for Olmsted Brothers as a staff landscape architect. He became a partner in 1950, a position he held until his retirement in 1961.

 

Riley’s work was varied at the Olmsted firm, from private residences and colleges to land subdivisions and parks. According to Olmsted firm colleague William B. Marquis, Riley “was happy in the design of private places where his keen aesthetic sense and intimate knowledge of plant materials were effective in producing an artistic result.” Riley was appointed one of the original directors of the Hubbard Educational Trust when it was founded in 1953. Established to honor Henry Vincent Hubbard, the Trust was created to further education in the field of landscape architecture.