Radburn Parks

The Radburn Parks are the heart of Radburn, a National Historic Landmark community planned in the 1920s around greenery rather than asphalt. These parks were designed by Marjorie Sewell Cautley, a pioneering female landscape architect, and remain the best-preserved examples of her prescient philosophy: use native plants; cluster trees of the same species; create outdoor spaces for parents and children.

Three of the four parks are mature landscapes. They have been augmented over the last two years by more than 100 trees, chosen and sited to revive and enhance Cautley’s original design. 

Clusters carefully arranged by Cautley, including gray birch, white pine, and eastern red cedar, can still be found in the parks. Mature white, red, black, and pin oaks – some hundreds of years old – provide a canopy. 

A section of one of the parks showcases a variety of deciduous and coniferous trees, including bald cypress, larch, and a newer dawn redwood. An old farm windbreak features mature hickories and black oaks. An allee of mature London Plane trees, also planted by Cautley, borders one of the parks. The Lenape people referred to Radburn as the Land of the Sassafras, and there are several mature and younger sassafras trees.