The Joseph H. Linesch papers span 57 linear feet and date from 1949 to circa 1995. The collection is composed of landscape drawings and reprographic copies, black-and-white photographs, negatives, and slides organized by project; correspondence, and reports on irrigation feasibility and forestation. The collection also includes office documents which take the form of planting manuals, brochures for Linesch’s landscaping firm, internal project lists, drawing indexes, contracts and master plans, and reference material on climatology organized by region.

Joseph H. Linesch was born on July 11, 1924 in Los Angeles. He studied engineering at Montana State College, pre-architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles, and graduated in 1950 with a degree in landscape architecture from the California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. Just out of school in 1953, Linesch found work with Bamico Gardens in Pasadena as a landscape architect. In 1954, he left Bamico Gardens and joined the design department of Evens & Reeves Nursery in West Los Angeles. Two years later, in 1956, Jack Evans one of the partners died and Linesch became a partner in the firm, renamed Evans, Linesch & Dutton. The firm grew into a multi-disciplinary operation of 27 individuals, offering: furnishing, planning, architecture, engineering and graphic services for a wide range of public and private clients. The firm dissolved in 1973. From 1957 to 1973, Linesch was also a partner in Linesch and Reynolds landscape architecture firm as well as Linesch and Associates. From 1973 to 1974, Linesch worked as the Director of Landscape Architecture at Walt E. Disney Enterprises and from 1974 to 1979 worked as an affiliate to the Peridian Group on projects such as, landscape planning for the 800-acre Irvine Regional Park, the grounds rehabilitation for the Fontainebleu Hotel in Miami Beach, and the site planning for the Golf Resort Hotel, in Abidjan in the Republic of the Ivory Coast in Africa. Over the course of his entire career, however, his more notable projects include the landscape design for Busch Gardens, Van Nuys; the Queen Mary, Long Beach; Hershey Park, PA where Linesch planted tropical gardens which grew cocoa beans; parts of the original Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom; the T.H.U.M.S Long Beach Oil Platform; and in 1990 the grounds of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Joseph H. Linesch retired in 1995 and died a year later on June 26, 1996, at the age of 72.

57.0 Linear feet (18 record storage boxes, 13 flat file drawers)

Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.