Ferruccio Vitale

The landscape architect Ferruccio Vitale, FASLA, is best known for developing the planting plan for Meridian Hill Park in Washington, D.C. He completed town plans for Scarsdale and Pleasantville in New York and the designs for gardens at many private estates. He began his career as a military engineer, training at the Royal Military Academy in his native Italy, and he served as the Italian military attaché in Washington, D.C., in the late 1890s. He then turned to landscape architecture, which he studied in Italy and Paris from 1900 to 1904, and worked at his father’s architectural firm in Florence during this period. In 1904 Vitale moved to New York and worked briefly at Parsons & Pentecost before establishing his own firm, Pentecost & Vitale, in 1905. He would operate a firm under his own name or with partners for the next ten years, including Vitale, Brinkerhoff & Geiffert, established in 1917; the firm become Vitale & Geiffert in 1924 and continued under that name until Vitale’s death in 1933. He was active in many professional organizations, including serving as president of the New York chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and a member of the Foundation for Architecture and Landscape Architecture. He was a member of the Architectural Commission for Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition and was a trustee of the American Academy in Rome and founder of its Department of Landscape Architecture. He was awarded the 1920 Gold Medal of the Architectural League of New York and awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy; he was an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects.