Saco Rienk DeBoer was born in Ureterp, Netherlands. He opened his landscape office there, having attended the Institute Poutsma and the Royal (German) Imperial School of Horticulture. DeBoer emigrated to New Mexico in 1908, and then, in 1910, succeeded Reinhard Schuetze as Denver 's Landscape Architect, a post DeBoer held until 1931. DeBoer continued to serve Denver as a planning engineer and park consultant. His private city planning and landscape design practice was opened in 1919 and continued until his death.
Denver Post columnist, Joanne Ditmer, noted that DeBoer's "brilliant imagination and perseverance left a legacy of beauty" across the "rambunctious, barren West." He was, she said, a pioneer, a visionary, and "a pragmatist who could dicker to make his dream a reality." DeBoer's career spanned seven decades and his commissions were diverse and far-ranging, from a series of simple landscape designs for modest front yards, "to make Denver...more livable and attractive," to the plan for Boulder City , Nevada , the first federally sponsored model city. It was said that he "did it all": zoning and planning schemes for towns and cities, chiefly in the west; park, parkway, population, traffic, mass transit, and ring-road regional studies and plans; civic centers in the Grand Manner; romantic subdivision and suburban layouts; and, institutional development plans and grand estate gardens.
DeBoer collaborated closely with George Kessler and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to complete Denver 's city-wide park and parkway system. While he worked in various traditions and materials, his personal signature soon emerged. He emphasized Denver 's sense of place by importing both mountain and prairie plant material into the city and arranging this material in flowing, naturalistic patterns. He added variety in color, design, mood, texture and shape and, not incidentally, promoted water conservation without detracting from the city's "legacy of green." He was an acknowledged master of juxtaposition and transition - he could plant a picnic grove of plains cottonwoods that segued into a formal Italian garden that in turn segued into a forested English park. In addition, he reinforced the tradition of establishing viewing platforms to provide visual connections between the city and the Rocky Mountains. He also demonstrated that Denver 's parks and parkways could be a year-round "flower trail," planted with hardy material in simple patterns. And he never stopped experimenting with a wide variety of plant materials not previously thought suitable for arid urban environments.
DeBoer was a Fellow of the ASLA and an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects and the American Society of Planning Officials. He received, in 1960, the Distinguished Service Award of the American Institute of Planners and, in 1972, the Regis College ( Denver ) Civis Princeps Award for Community Service.
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Adapted from the essay by Don Etter in Pioneers of American Landscape Design
(Dept of the Interior, 1993)
