The Academy Art Museum is hosting its next Kittredge-Wilson Lecture Series on Thursday December 15, 6 p.m. Eric D. Groft, FASLA, Principal, Oehme van Sweden & Associates, will present “The New American Garden: On the Shore and Beyond.” Groft is renowned for his diversity in residential, commercial and institutional work. He prides himself in his sense of regionalism and attention to the vernacular.
His frequently published design accomplishments in residential work are focused in the New York metropolitan area and in and around his home town of Annapolis, Maryland. They include Manhattan rooftop terraces; oceanfront estates on Long Island; historic properties in Connecticut and Upstate New York; farm properties in northern New Jersey; and a 3,500-acre nature preserve/hunting lodge on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Groft’s commissions include landscape master planning efforts for the American Museum in Bath, UK; Ridge Hill, a retail, entertainment, hotel, office, and residential destination in Yonkers, New York; Rock Rim Ponds, a 250-acre residential community in Pound Ridge, New York; the Ritz-Carlton Residences, North Hills, New York; and Americana at Manhasset, a collection of international boutiques along Long Island’s “Miracle Mile.”
His federal work includes multiple commissions for the Federal Reserve Campus in Washington, DC. In 2003, Groft updated the landscape design and perimeter security on the facility’s campus, and is currently engaged in the renovation of the campus’ William McChesney Martin Building. His federal work extends to Bridgetown, Barbados, where he prepared the landscape master plan for the United States Embassy.
Elsewhere, his design accomplishments include the corporate offices of the National Association of Realtors, in Washington, DC; a riverine landscape in St. Louis, Missouri’s historic Forest Park; MacArthur Center, an urban retail complex, Norfolk, Virginia; South Franklin Circle, a senior housing community in Chagrin Falls, Ohio; and Alderman Library Quadrangle, a pedestrian promenade at the University of Virginia.
Groft has a passion for horticulture and is dedicated to taking Oehme van Sweden & Associates’ New American Garden Style into the 21st Century. He is widely recognized as an industry leader in environmental/wetland restoration, and shoreline stabilization/revetment. He frequently lectures on these topics and the work of his firm.
He is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, a member of the Board of The Cultural Landscape Foundation and a member of the Royal Oak Foundation, an affiliate of the British National Trust. Groft also was an adjudicator for both the competition to re-design the grounds of the Washington Monument and for Luxury Pools’ 2012 Pinnacle Awards. He holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree with majors in geography/ environmental science from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.
The cost to attend the lecture is $20 for Museum members and $24 for non-members. To register, visit academyartmuseum.org or call 410-822-2787.
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