In 1890, Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot were called to advise on the improvement of Princeton University, then called College of New Jersey. Creating a general plan for the campus, they focused on grading the land around existing buildings. In a letter to Moses Taylor Pyne, one of Princeton’s greatest benefactors and most influential trustees, John Charles Olmsted wrote that “The intention is to have long, graceful, easy slopes, nowhere steeper than would be practicable to walk upon, and leaving an ample breadth of nearly level ground all around the building, so that it will appear to have been placed upon a natural plateau."
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service