Mountain Brook - A Historic American Landscape

From 1926 to 1929, the Jemison & Co. real estate firm of Birmingham, Alabama, assembled a team of talented professionals to design a residential district in a rugged wilderness south of the city. Led by celebrated landscape architect and planner Warren H. Manning of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Jemison's team integrated homes, recreation, and community amenities into a park-like setting, retaining and intensifying the area's natural beauty. By the 1950s, the 4,500-acre Mountain Brook development would become one of the highest per capita income communities in America. This book details the process by which planners worked out their vision and presents documentation prepared by Birmingham Historical Society for the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS), a program of the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. It includes more than 200 historic and contemporary photographs and drawings.