The French collection consists of project files and drawings arranged into four series: professional papers from both Helen and Prentiss French, projects by Helen French, projects by both Helen and Prentiss French, and projects by Prentiss French. Their projects consist mainly of houses in Northern California and Florida. The records also include photographs of the site of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and a PG&E station. Helen French's oversize drawings consist of various residences, while Prentiss French's large drawings are from landscape designs of Harvey Mudd College, the University of Alaska, and US Army Air Defense Missile Sites.

Architect Helen Douglass French and her husband, landscape architect Prentiss French, worked together and independently in New England, Florida, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Helen Douglass was born in 1900 in Arlington, MA. earning her graduate degree at the Cambridge School of Architecture (1917-1921) -- now part of the Harvard School of Architecture. She subsequently worked in the Boston offices of Charles G. Loring (1921-1925) and William Delano Aldrich (1925-1926), later studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and traveling in Europe (1926-1927). Prentiss French was born in 1894 in Chicago, IL. He earned his Master's Degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard in 1921 subsequently working in the office of the Olmsted Brothers (1921-1924), and teaching at the University of Massachusetts in 1925. From 1926-1928, Prentiss was employed as the resident landscape architect for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, then establishing the new town of Venice, FL.

1 box, 3 flat file drawers

All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in the collection should be discussed with the Curator.

Collection open for research.