THE TRIP HOME proved exhausting. It involved an uncomfortable carriage ride to Lake Nicaragua, crossing the lake by small steamer, and descending a rapids-infested river by stages to the Atlantic. Bad weather stranded them on the coast for a week. In all it took them forty-one days. In New York, Frederick and Mary settled in a boardinghouse—it would be several months before their furniture and possessions arrived from Bear Valley (by ship around Cape Horn). They had congenial company there—Charles Brace, who was still directing the Children’s Aid Society, his wife, Letitia, and their children were also lodgers. Boarding was more expensive than renting, but there was no time to set up a proper household. Olmsted, Vaux & Company, Landscape Architects—Olmsted had conceded the title—required his immediate attention. The fledgling firm shared space with Vaux and Frederick Withers’s architectural office at 110 Broadway. (Withers also was a partner in Olmsted, Vaux & Co.) Draftsmen were put to work completing the plans for the two California projects: Mountain View Cemetery and the College of California.
The Brooklyn park board expected a preliminary plan and a report by the end of the year. Vaux had offhandedly characterized the park to Olmsted as “an easy affair & a short job.” That was a gross understatement, yet in a sense, Vaux was right. Thanks to his own timely suggestions, the Brooklyn park had none of the complications of Central Park. The proposed site was not an elongated rectangle but a generously proportioned diamond shape, a mile and a half long and about a mile wide. It was unencumbered by unsightly water reservoirs. No transverse roads would be required. In a word, it was perfect. Olmsted and Vaux were fully aware that this commission represented a unique opportunity, and they convinced the board to extend the deadline by almost a month.