Llewellyn park, suburban idyll

Llewellyn Park, created by a group of progressive entrepreneurs and garden enthusiasts in 1850, was the first romantically planned suburb in the usa1 (figure 1). The initiator of the project, Llewellyn Haskell, saw an economic opportunity in the increasing anti-urbanism of the middle class and the development of a nascent passenger rail service. But Haskell was also a progressive businessman who wedded his entrepreneurial endeavours to socially reformist ideas. From the outset Llewellyn Park was not simply a speculative venture but an alternative community, a curative haven from the pernicious influences of the city — from its bad air, disease, and moral corruption —and a fount of physical and mental rejuvenation.