Piedmont Way was conceived in 1865 by Frederick Law Olmstead, America’s foremost landscape architect, as the centerpiece of a gracious residential community beside the College of California. Olmstead envisioned a roadway that would follow the natural contours of the land and be sheltered from sun and wind by “an over-arching bowery of foliage.” This curvilinear, tree-lined parkway was Olmstead’s first residential street design and served as the model for similar parkways across the nation.