Funny you should ask. To make a long story short, I had cooked in high-end restaurant kitchens after school, weekends, and summers from the time I was 12. Why I worked so much is for another time. At almost 20 years old on an internship from my culinary school, I was working for an Austrian pastry chef, Hermann Wayd, at the Balsams Hotel in Dicksville Notch. That’s a classic 19th c. resort hotel like the Mount Washington in Bretton Woods. I asked Hermann if he could be my mentor and train me, but he said he wanted to retire. He suggested I go to Lech, Austria where he had worked, and he would recommend me.
Two years and a couple restaurants later, I’d earned a culinary degree and flew out for Lech, sidestepping to see my brother who lived in Paris. He had worked in Austria and told me that without knowing German, I’d never get a job and because I knew French, I should work in France, learn German on the side, and then get to Austria.
I found a position at Le Chapeau Gris, a small but fine restaurant in Versailles, a city 10 miles west of Paris.
In my time off I discovered Paris, its monuments and parks and boulevards and tiny back streets, its courtyards and riverwalks, the forests to the east and west. I naively thought someone should make these kinds of places for the U.S.
Little did I know of the long history of landscape architecture around the world – F. L. Olmsted, A. Le Notre, A. Provost, T. Church, M. Van Valkenburgh, M. Schwartz.
But I got hooked. No way, I thought, that people actually get to do this for a living. That next fall I got into landscape architecture at UMass Amherst for four years as an undergrad and then three years of grad school at Harvard.
Maybe in the next lifetime I’ll get to Lech to work in that pastry shop. In the meantime, I’m forever reminded of the great places I’ve been lucky to visit, and the incredible influences each holds for interpreting how our built spaces might be composed.
David graduated with a degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University, and established Bartsch Landscape Architecture in 1999.
Prior to starting his firm, David spent a decade working with leading firms in Boston and Paris (Martha Schwartz, Craig Halvorson, Morgan Wheelock, Allain Provost), on projects including public parks, regional high schools, assisted living facilities, garden-cemeteries, and custom private homes.
From travels in Europe, Asia, Scandinavia, and across North America, David reinterprets the successful ingredients of large and small landmark settings to create unique and engaging landscapes that contribute in their own way to the better built environment.
The objective is beautiful, well-loved, and durable places. The key factors are respectful client service, ever-growing knowledge of proven methods in design and construction, and keeping an open mind to fresh ideas for exceptional results.
David leads projects with diverse teams from needs and options review, through design and construction, to operations. David’s close project management integrates and controls schedules, budgets, and scopes of work. His proactive involvement results in high-quality projects, excellent customer service, and measurable cost savings.
Bartsch Landscape Architecture transforms everyday spaces into extraordinary places.
See the downloadable CV for more information on David’s background, education, and professional affiliations.
Just as a doctor performs a thorough diagnosis before suggesting fixes to a problem or starting surgery, our process begins with thorough research of your project’s unique details through our Needs & Options Review.
The Needs & Options Review serves several purposes:
Bartsch Landscape Architecture provides full-service design and project management from exploring opportunities through to construction wrap-up. We help to bring out the full potential of your property through your individualized program – something we develop for each of our clients.
We coordinate the work of
We work in collaboration with
Through our comprehensive site design process, we ensure that diverse elements will coalesce into a unified, beautiful, and functional composition that lasts for generations.
We develop site designs and Master Plans through scaled drawings to specify the location, arrangement, and integration all the necessary elements of a beautiful and functional setting:
Drawing on decades of experience, we quickly research and assess what can be allowed on a site by state and local government agencies. We weigh the existing attributes and the natural potential a property has and what it can become. This gives our clients a clear start to understand their site’s capacity early in the assessment and concept development process.
Our feasibility studies include evaluations of
Land planning for phased projects not only provides a compelling vision for your property’s future, it also aligns the project scope and budget with a feasible build-out sequence. Illustrative master plan drawings, entitlement/permitting review, and financial assessment are our primary deliverables.
They provide you with the right information
We represent projects independently and in collaboration with local experts.
When required, our coordination typically includes permit acquisition from
As your representative, and depending on the complexity of your project, we not only manage tradespeople and their schedule, but we solve issues that arise during construction.
We help ensure the design intent is faithfully executed by observing
