The Olana Partnership mourns the passing of Robin Key, FASLA, the Co-Chair of our Board of Directors, who passed away on April 30 after a brief and sudden illness. As a landscape architect, Robin founded RKLA Studio in 1987 and joined our board in 2010. She poured her knowledge and passion for nature and landscape into the restoration of Frederic Church’s 250-acre designed landscape at Olana. She played a leading role in developing and implementing our award-winning Strategic Landscape Design Plan, with a focus on making the historic landscape central to the visitor experience. She supported and advised on the Frederic Church Center for Art & Landscape, which opened to the public in 2024.  Robin dedicated much of her time to leading The Olana Partnership to broaden its interpretation of Olana as an American cultural landmark, engaging artists and designers and an expanding network of supporters. Robin has left a powerful, tangible legacy in the renewed understanding and appreciation of Olana as a work of landscape art and design. We send our deepest condolences to her family and many, many friends.

Robin Key, FASLA, founder of RKLA Studio, was a landscape architect of extraordinary sensitivity and knowledge, a mentor to generations of designers, and a beloved colleague and friend.

Robin began the practice in 1987 and, over nearly four decades, shaped a body of work rooted in close observation, deep horticultural knowledge, and respect for the cultural and physical character of each site. Her work moved gracefully between historic preservation and contemporary design, from the grounds of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and the restoration and modernization of Tavern on the Green, to the master plan for First Presbyterian Church in Greenwich Village, institutional landscapes, school campuses, affordable housing, private gardens, and public spaces throughout New York and beyond.

Robin understood landscape as a living continuum that was shaped by ecology, memory, craft, and human care. She believed that design should respond to what is already present: the character of a place, the plants that will thrive there, the people who will use it, and the histories that deserve to be seen, protected, and carried forward. In 2018, she was elevated to the American Society of Landscape Architects Council of Fellows in recognition of her lasting contributions to the profession.  She also served on the Stewardship Council of The Cultural Landscape Foundation and the Advisory Board of The Noguchi Museum, bringing the same generosity, rigor, and curiosity to the cultural landscapes and institutions she cared for so deeply.

Robin also spent much of her time in Vermont, where her gardens, meadows, woodlands, and trails became an ongoing expression of her lifelong passion for plants, landscape, and the close observation of the natural world. The property served as both refuge and experimental canvas.

At RKLA, Robin’s legacy is found not only in the work she made, but in the way she taught us to work. She taught through conversation, through plants, through drawings, through site visits, and through the quiet insistence that every detail mattered. She listened carefully. She connected people. She valued the knowledge of builders, gardeners, clients, colleagues, and communities. She believed that good design required patience, collaboration, technical rigor, and an enduring sense of responsibility.

The studio Robin founded continues under the leadership of Managing Partner Gareth Mahon, her collaborator for 22 years and business partner for the past decade, together with Partner Naomi Drucker, Principal Michael Weber, and an experienced team shaped by many years of shared work and shared values. That continuity is one of Robin’s lasting legacies: a practice grounded in stewardship, collaboration, design excellence, and care for the living landscape.

Robin’s presence can be felt throughout the landscapes she shaped, the institutions she supported, and the many people fortunate enough to work alongside her. We will miss her warmth, intelligence, humor, generosity, and unwavering commitment to making the world more beautiful. We remember her with deep gratitude and love, and we continue our work in the spirit of the practice she founded.