Brooks Kolb- Landscape in Lavender

When society regards you as an outcast even before AIDS starts killing your gay brothers, coming out of the closet is hard enough—yet it’s only the first step. Afterward, finding lasting love and building an authentic identity can be even more challenging.

In this heartfelt memoir—set in Seattle, Philadelphia, and San Francisco against the backdrop of the 1970s sexual revolution and the devastating AIDS pandemic—Brooks Kolb becomes a landscape architect, crosses racial barriers to win love, loses that love, and searches for a place to call home. Along the way he learns that freedom demands constructing your own morality, loss is an inevitable part of life, and the need to belong can be just as urgent as the longing for love.

Brooks Kolb was educated at the American College in Paris, University College London, and the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn he trained in landscape architecture under Ian McHarg, famed author of Design With Nature, and with Laurie Olin, subject of the 2024 documentary Sitting Still.

After coming out of the closet, he moved to San Francisco, where he witnessed two key periods of gay history: the post-Stonewall era of sexual liberation and the tragic AIDS epoch.

The principal of Brooks Kolb LLC Landscape Architecture, Brooks has a practice devoted to residential garden design. A long-term park preservation advocate and founding member of Seattle’s Volunteer Park Trust, he currently serves on the boards of Allied Arts of Seattle and the Allied Arts Foundation. An avid swimmer, Brooks lives in Seattle with his husband, Dennis, and their miniature schnauzer, Stella.

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