What’s Out There offers online resource for finding America’s great landscapes

What’s Out There site showcases great landscapes

Designed landscapes are powerful places to visit, but they can sometimes be hard to find. By their very nature, they draw us in quietly. They may be far from the city center. They don’t clamor for attention the way other attractions do. With that in mind, The Cultural Landscape Foundation has created an online resource to help steer travelers to some of the greatest parks, gardens, and historic homes in the United States.

Through a Web feature called What’s Out There — found online at tclf.org/landscapes — the Washington, D.C.-based foundation introduces more than 650 sites designed over the last 200 years by a pantheon of famous architects and designers.

Gardens can be searched by landscape name, type, style, designer or location. “There are cities with robust parks systems,” said Charles A. Birnbaum, president of TCLF. “But the parks Web site won’t tell you which are the most important Olmsted landscapes.”

What’s Out There does tell you, by providing a summary of a site’s history and design background, photos, and links to more information. A landscape architect and historian, Birnbaum is passionate about saving the work of great landscape designers like Frederick Law Olmsted, the American who, with Calvert Vaux, designed Central Park and dozens of other famous public landscapes.

Birnbaum wants to help educate the public about what they see when they arrive at a park or historic estate, and how to find historic landscapes that are little-known. The Web site includes the work of more than 380 landscape architects and designers including Ellen Biddle Shipman, who designed the 1931 Italianate garden at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, Fla. With What’s Out There, Birnbaum seeks to rally, educate, and inspire visitors to find a new appreciation of designed landscapes.

“What we’re trying to do is teach people how to value nature and culture,” he said.

Here are some landscapes that would make great winter destinations.

—Il Brolino, Montecito, Calif., www.tclf.org/content/il-brolino. Designed by Florence Yoch and Lucille Council in 1922, Il Brolino means “the little garden.” The property includes an Italian villa-style house and a series of garden rooms. The photo tour on the Web site is a worthy destination in itself.

—Lotusland, Santa Barbara, Calif., www.tclf.org/landscapes/lotusland. The 37-acre Lotusland property was originally owned by British horticulturist Ralph Kinton Stevens. Subsequent landowners developed the grounds to include a grotto, a theater, and a variety of themed gardens. Now Lotusland is open to the public as a botanical garden of rare plants.

—Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, Fla., www.tclf.org/landscapes/cummer-museum-art. This 1903 estate was once the home of Michigan lumber baron brothers Arthur and Waldo Cummer and their wives, Ninah and Clara. The grounds include a great Italianate garden and one of the oldest oak trees in the country.

—Reynolda Historic House and Museum, Winston-Salem, N.C., tclf.org/content/reynolda. This 1,067-acre farm was the home of Richard Joshua Reynolds, the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, and Katharine Smith Reynolds. It was developed into a self-sufficient community in the early 1900s. The property, which is owned by Wake Forest University, includes a 16-acre lake and an art museum.