Pioneer Information
Born in Caribou, Maine, Chassé earned a B.S. in biology from the University of Maine at Orono, a M.Ed. in environmental education and botany from the University of Maine, and a M.L.A from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He supplemented his formal education, studying precious metal fabrication and glassblowing under Dale Chihuly at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
As a landscape architect, Chassé specialized in the rehabilitation of historic gardens, estates, and plant communities, completing more than 200 projects worldwide, 140 of which are located on Mount Desert Island, Maine. Here, projects include the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden, Asticou Azalea Garden, Thuya Garden, Skylands, a private estate formerly designed by Jens Jensen, and Garland Farm, Beatrix Farrand’s home until her death in 1959. In 2003 he cofounded The Beatrix Farrand Society, headquartered at Garland Farm. Projects outside of Maine include the rehabilitation of Marian Coffin’s ornamental conifer arboretum at the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York (2004) and The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts (1980-99).
In addition to his legacy as a university instructor—having taught at Harvard University, the College of the Atlantic, and Sheffield University, among others—in 2004 he was named the inaugural Curator of Landscape at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. At the Gardner Museum, Chassé conducted archival research to return the iconic courtyard to its original design, and he established a lecture series to honor the centrality of landscape to the museum’s history and mission. Chassé passed away at the age of 78 in Scarborough, Maine after a multi-decade battle with cancer.
