Upon awarding him with the Civis Princeps award in 1972, Regis College noted that 'many a good and generous man aspires to put a personal mark on his own city. In 1948 he wrote a semi-autobiographical book about his life and landscaping work in Denver entitled 'Around the Seasons in Denver Parks and Gardens'. As one memorial put it, 'probably no other person has done as much to make this region a green oasis.' More globally, Saco DeBoer articulated the content and design of the Rocky Mountain urban landscape, with a legacy revealed not only in the fabric of cities or the design of parks, but also in the hundreds of publications on everything from aesthetic design to soil characteristics in the transmontane West. He even worked with National Resources Planning on more comprehensive planning, spending more than a decade devising programs for the states of Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming. He consulted for cities along the Front Range – including Greeley, Grand Junction, Boulder, Golden, Longmont, Aurora, Fort Collins, and Englewood – and far beyond, including Scottsbluff, Nebraska Brainerd, Minnesota Ruidoso, New Mexico Idaho Falls, Idaho Boulder City, Nevada and Glendive, Montana.

He was partially responsible for such signature sites as Denver Botanic Gardens and Red Rocks Amphitheatre.ĭeBoer's work extended well beyond Denver. As a city planner, he co-authored Denver's first zoning code, helped devise many of its roadways, and led in the development of mountain parks. Together their projects were many, among them the landscaping of both sides of Speer Boulevard in Denver, and two early and innovative Colorado subdivisions, Bonnie Brae in Denver and The Glens in Lakewood, both of which feature winding streets and multiple small 'pocket parks.'Īs a landscape architect, S R DeBoer designed dozens of city parks and hundreds of private gardens. In 1919, he joined with another Dutchman, M. He also designed the planned community of Boulder City, Nevada. He became the official Landscape Architect of Denver from 1910 to 1931. In 1909 when Bethesda Sanitarium moved to Denver, he moved with it, planning the landscaping for the new building. His symptoms worsened in the summer of 1908, on doctor and family advice he emigrated to the United States in October 1908 be cured at the Dutch operated Bethesda Sanatarium in Maxwell, NM. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis, on the advice of doctors him to return home to Ureterp where he opened an office. He went on to study landscape architecture at The Royal Imperial School of Horticulture in Germany. He studied engineering and passed the Junior Engineer (surveyor) exam. He was born on September 7, 1883, in Ureterp, Opsterland, Friesland, Netherlands to architect Rienk Kornelius De Boer and avid gardener Antje Dictus Benedictus. Saco Rienk DeBoer was a Dutch landscape architect and city planner.

Landscape architect denver