Muirhead and Justice

 

Desmond Muirhead

 

A pioneering Vancouver professional landscaper, Englishman Desmond Muirhead graduated from UBC in plant pathology and began a landscaping business in Kerrisdale. The firm's work focused on landscape and garden planning for single family homes on 50- and 66-foot lots in Shaughnessy, Point Grey, the University Endowment Lands and West Vancouver's British Properties. Clive Justice, who joined Muirhead's firm in 1953, said that two prevailing modes had dominated landscaping in the fifties: "the 'Seattle large-boulder rockery' on all sloping sites, and 'the pointed and spreading dwarf conifer up against the house foundation' style."

Muirhead introduced the notion of designs and blueprints to Vancouver. Early commissions included the McPhee residence on 49th Avenue near McKenzie and the Clarence Saba garden between McKenzie and Cedarhurst. These gardens were designed to complement two of the earliest International style homes in Vancouver, by architect Douglas Simpson of Semmens and Simpson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clive Justice

 

In the 1950s and early 1960s, two firms—Justice & Webb and Tatersfield & Associates—dominated landscape architecture in the region. Among projects completed by Justice & Webb were golf courses (Shaughnessy, Langara, VanDusen and North Richmond), as well as the restoration of Fort Langley. Clive Justice was also instrumental in interesting people in rhododendrons.