Who's Who

Landscape architect and arts advocate Richard C. “Dick” Bell, a fellow of both the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and the American Academy in Rome, has spent a lifetime living up to a personal edict: “I want to leave a little beauty behind wherever I go.”

Thousands of people have been touched by Bell’s work. The children who play among the rolling hills and lush gardens of Raleigh’s Pullen Park, the students and faculty who stroll along NC State University’s famed “Brickyard” and Student Center sculpture plaza, the crowds who gather by the little lake at Meredith College’s amphitheatre for concerts or weddings, downtown folks who enjoy the fountains, benches and green space within Moore Square Transit block — these are only a few places among nearly 2000 projects where Bell has left “a little beauty behind” throughout his 52-year career.

Bell was born in 1928, the first of three sons of an English immigrant who, like Sir Walter Raleigh’s colony before him, settled on Roanoke Island. His father, Albert Q. Bell, opened the first nursery on the Island and taught his son the art and craft of growing and hybridizing plants. In 1937, the elder Bell became master builder for Fort Raleigh and Waterside Theatre, where The Lost Colony first opened in 1938. Frank Stick, the driving force behind the creation of Roanoke Island National Park, learned of this Englishman’s skills in log construction and thatch roofing.

“My father’s work in Manteo looms large in all of my childhood memories,” Bell said. “I watched through young eyes as he used his self-acquired knowledge of design and construction to recreate many of the original 16th century structures. And I believe I recognized even then the irony — that we, too, were ‘colonists’ in a ‘new world’ made of sea, sand, pine trees and fresh air.

“Paving the way, braving the elements, natural or otherwise, creating something from nothing, and always learning — this was my birthright,” he added. “Even as a child growing up during the Great Depression, I somehow knew that this was the legacy I was destined to carry on throughout my own life.”

Bell first came to Raleigh to attend NC State College, where he studied landscape architecture and assisted with the actual master plan of the University. He graduated in 1950 and, at age 21, was the youngest person to receive the Prix de Rome Fellowship, which allowed him to study at the American Acad­emy in Rome and travel throughout Europe. The lessons he learned — about design, art, culture and religion — were seminal influences on his life’s work, he feels.

Back in the States, he apprenticed under landscape architects in Florida and Penns­ylvania before returning to Raleigh to start his first practice — that later dissolved when Bell and his partner disagreed over “urban renewal.” Bell saw it as “black relocation, plain and simple.” So he left to start a new firm.

Bell has designed everything from major city and highway corridors to city parks, university plazas and amphitheatres, mixed-use beachfront developments, and individual residences. And he was a recognized leader in environmentalism and sustainable design long before the words became part of the general lexicon.

Thanks to Bell’s determination, landscape architecture became a registered profession for the first time in North Carolina in 1969, and its own chapter of the Amer­ican Society of Landscape Architects was established. Bell was also the very first recipient of the Award for Distinguished Pro­fessional Achievement from the North Carol­ina Chapter of the ASLA.

In the late 1960s, Bell conceived of and produced the first Garden Show at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. In the 1970s, he served as president of the North Carolina Land Use Congress, as a member of the Ral­eigh-Wake Land Use Code Committee, as a member of the Wake County Planning Board, and as a member of the NC Task Force for Environmental Education. From 1989 to 1995, he served on the Raleigh Plan­ning Commission.

Bell’s involvement in planning was an example of what he refers to as “pebbles in the pond”: “I’d throw the pebble in and see where the ripples took me,” he said. “I was always looking for a better idea, a bigger picture. You have to push for excellence. As I’ve told students of landscape architecture, don’t automatically settle for what your clients think they want. If you can visualize how to make a project truly special, say so. I was often able to work on projects nobody else did because I thought of them.”

Bell’s signature project was Water Garden, an 11-acre, mixed-use development along Glenwood Avenue/US 70 that he and his wife, Mary Jo, called home and office for 52 years. Countless younger landscape architects have honed their skills under his guidance within Water Garden’s ancient hardwoods, pines, natural terrain and carefully preserved wetlands. In 1981, Bell received the coveted “Judges’ Award” from the American Assoc­ia­tion of Nurserymen for Water Garden.

Bell and Mary Jo also have been active advocates for the arts for five decades. In the early 1960s, they opened the Garden Gallery at Water Garden, which became a cultural center in the city, where they introduced many now-renown North Carolina artists to the community.

The Bells recently sold Water Garden and are headed to Atlantic Beach where they’ve owned a condominium in Tar Landing since he master planned that development 30 years ago. But he doesn’t consider himself retired. There are more projects to do, he says, as he continues his quest to “leave a little beauty behind wherever I go.”