It’s no secret — the Mile High City is blessed with a robust and accessible network of public parks and greenspaces. Denver even ranked in the top 10 of the best big-city parks systems in the country by the Trust for Public Land earlier this year. Soon, another 155 acres of greenspace will be coming online when a yet-to-be-named park at the site of the former Park HIll Golf Course opens. In honor of this moment, here’s a look at one of Denver’s most influential greenspace designers, Saco Rienk DeBoer, and the ways he shaped how we experience the city’s outdoor spaces today.
Who Was S.R. DeBoer?
Saco Rienk DeBoer was born in the Netherlands in 1883. The son of an architect, he grew up to study engineering, horticulture, and landscape design, eventually opening his own landscaping office. But a bout of tuberculosis in 1908 sent DeBoer packing for America in search of a dryer climate. He ultimately settled in Denver, a well-known low-humidity refuge for hundreds of thousands of TB patients at the time. He began working at the city nursery, and alongside fellow landscape architect George Kessler, used his expertise to convert a city dump into what is known today as Sunken Gardens Park. After this topographical transformation caught the attention of Mayor Robert Speer, DeBoer was named the official landscape architect of the city in 1910.
Saco and the City Beautiful Movement
During Mayor Speer’s first term in office from 1904 to 1912, he embraced the “City Beautiful Movement” — a national shift in philosophy around the built environment, introducing public park space as something central to the vitality of urban life. DeBoer’s designs were integral in this transformation for Denver, as evidenced by his work on Alamo Placita Park, Berkeley Lake Park, South Marion Street Parkway, and Speer Boulevard’s greenways. Mayor Speer’s vision included installing decorative fountains, benches, playgrounds, and drinking fountains around the city, which DeBoer worked into many of his landscapes. He even had a hand in the design of Washington Park, but was stymied by a change in leadership when Speer left office and the new administration put a stop to that project.
A Complicated Legacy
Through his many years working with the city and beyond, DeBoer’s designs became a crucial part of Denver’s identity. His parks, parkways, and greenspaces along with the delicate landscapes he created for private residences gave DeBoer fertile ground to experiment with unique designs using a variety of plants, shrubbery, and flowers. While working under Mayor Benjamin Stapleton, DeBoer introduced the city to the Japanese crabapple tree, which produced gorgeous flowers while remaining hearty enough to live through Front Range winters. (Stapleton wanted cherry trees, but city gardeners found they couldn’t survive Denver’s climate.)
But DeBoer’s work with Mayor Stapleton — a confirmed member of the KKK — also included the creation of exclusionary zoning codes, which heavily emphasized single-family zoning. These land use laws discouraged the construction of apartments and other shared living opportunities, meaning lower income Denverites couldn’t afford to live in some of the most beautiful areas of the city. Today, many see these early zoning laws as the blueprint for redlining, a discriminatory practice that racially segregated cities across America and still continues to impact modern-day Denver.
However, through zoning codes and urban design, DeBoer also advocated for keeping factories and other industrial land use away from residential areas to limit Denverites’ interaction with pollution. In addition, his parks-centered approach called for restricted car traffic in neighborhoods, with an emphasis on keeping streetspace accessible and safe for children to play in. Throughout his career, he made an impact on the Front Range and beyond by designing dozens of landscapes, major parks, neighborhood passageways, and whole subdivisions. DeBoer’s work can be seen everywhere from the East 17th Avenue Parkway and the Cheesman Park Esplanade to his master plans for the Denver Botanic Gardens, the City of Lakewood, and Cherry Hills Village. He died in 1974 in Denver.
Special thanks to the Colorado Encyclopedia, History Colorado, the City of Denver, and The Cultural Landscape Foundation for resources on this topic.
