Robin Mack Key

Robin M. Key, 72, of Londonderry, VT on April 30, 2026, after a brief illness. Born in Evanston, IL, she was a respected Landscape Architect and the founder of RKLA Studio in Manhattan.

After graduating from the University of Vermont in plant and soil science in 1977, she continued her academic training in Landscape Architecture at Cornell University under Marvin Adelman and Peter Trowbridge, two of the most pre-eminent Landscape Architects in the U.S. at the time. By 1982, she was raising two children with her husband, David M. Key of New York who was also in the graduate program at Cornell in Agricultural Economics. She immediately began working for Daniel Stewart, a well-known practicing Landscape Architect in Greenwich Village. After Mr. Stewart’s death she began her own practice while raising her third child and subsequently founded RKLA Studio in 2003. She and her family have lived in a townhouse on Jane Street in the West Village of Manhattan all these years.

For the next 20+ years she built her practice with the help of many talented employees which she hired as her business expanded. Initially, her projects included work for private families who sought expertise in historic preservation as well as detailed construction of backyard and rooftop gardens requiring resilient plants and trees adaptable to demanding urban environments. As her business grew so did her interest in public works and larger city projects which all required a collaborative approach to urban development of green space. These included St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, Tavern on the Green in Central Park and Serviam Gardens, an affordable housing project in the Bronx. (see resume).

In 2010, Robin joined the Board of Trustees of The Olana Partnership (TOP) that helps to preserve the work and landscape of the American painter Frederic Church, foremost of the Hudson River school of artists in the late 19th century. Olana, Church’s residence and studio, is a New York State historic site on 250 acres in Hudson, NY. Olana was in need of repair and interpretation to inform the public on Church’s role not only as a painter but as a collaborator with Frederic Law Olmstead on Central Park and in developing Olana as a living landscape canvas. Just earlier in April, as co-chair of TOP, Robin helped to host a Gala event for 400 people at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to begin the celebration of the 200th year anniversary of Church’s birth, a milestone being celebrated by many prominent museums in the United States who show and interpret Church’s painted landscapes.

Robin was elected a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2018 with the help of friend Thomas Woltz of the firm Nelson, Byrd, Woltz of Charlotte VA and New York, NY. She was a Trustee of the Cultural Landscape Foundation of Washington D.C. and was on the Advisory Board for the Noguchi Museum in Queens, NY, the latter to continue an intriguing relationship her family had with Osamu Noguchi when he came to rural Indiana from Japan as an adolescent with no particular ties to family or country.

Robin and her family own a 300 acre farm in southern Vermont. Here, Robin built her own gardens focused on perennials for cold climates, native trees and shrubs. With her husband much of the property was established as a working Tree Farm producing timber and maple syrup. Robin guided the construction of miles of hiking and ski trails, large fields and ponds, and stone work in collaboration with Dan Snow, a well-known dry stone sculptor. Fresh produce, maple syrup and honey are produced for the family every year.

Robin was an exceptionally generous person with her time and thought. In both her personal and her professional life she sought change through collaboration and by connecting people together to achieve common goals. Her partners, employees, her various subcontractors, her fellow trustees and her extended family all loved working with her because of her curiosity of the natural world and her knowledge of what grows underfoot and nearby. She is survived by her husband of 50 years, David M. Key and their 3 children, Mckendree, Lindsay and Ely Key, and 4 grandchildren. Robin’s love infused and sustained her family. She is missed by all for her warm and generous spirit but also for her iron commitment to making the world a more beautiful place. A service will be held on May 30 at 2 PM at the Peru Church in Peru, VT, where gifts can be made in lieu of flowers.