About Us
Montgomery Smith Incorporated specializes in professional services for Historic Building Restoration, Glasshouse and Conservatory Design and Restoration, Needs Assessments, and Structural Surveys for a wide variety of historic building types with a focus on glasshouse structures.
The firm also has expertise in assembling and facilitating design teams for new construction projects and restorations involving conservatories and greenhouses. The professional members of these design teams – Architects, Mechanical and Structural engineers, and specialty consultants – are drawn from Montgomery Smith’s long standing network of professionals and professional firms across the US and Canada. The experts in this network have worked together over the past thirty-seven years in different combinations on numerous restoration and new construction projects.
Montgomery Smith Inc. can provide services for design management, design project management, auto-cad design, construction management with personnel oversight, and historic document research and digital transcription.
The owner, James M. Smith, has been involved in historic restoration projects for over forty two years and glasshouse design, engineering and construction, for over thirty-seven years.
The firm is currently involved in new design and construction projects of large-scale public conservatories, research and production greenhouses at both universities and public gardens, as well as, restoration projects for existing public conservatories and historic glasshouses.
James M. Smith, AAIA
Principal, Glasshouse Design and Preservation Consultant
Education
BA – University of Cincinnati
College of Design, Architecture and Art
Professional Associations
AIA, Associate Member, Cincinnati Chapter
American Public Gardens Association
Association for Preservation Technology
Society of Architectural Historians
National Trust for Historic Preservation
Cincinnati Preservation Association
IMA Horticultural Society
Conservation Assessment Program (CAP) Assessor
Smithsonian Institution, Guest Lecturer, January 1999
Experience
James Smith is the owner of Montgomery Smith Incorporated, a consulting firm specializing in providing professional services for Greenhouses and Conservatory Spaces. Services including:
- Conservatory and Research Greenhouse Design
- Glasshouse Preservation
- Environmental Systems Design
After eight years of construction and management in the restoration of historic buildings in Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Smith joined a national greenhouse design and manufacturing firm in 1985. In that position he managed the Construction Division that built, restored and repaired commercial, institutional and public greenhouses nationwide for eight years. He then became the head of the company’s Conservatory Restoration Division and a member of the corporate management team as Vice President of Operations for the next seven years.Since the incorporation of Montgomery Smith, Inc. in 2000, Mr. Smith has consulted for a wide range of clients and institutions involved in new greenhouse design, conservatory design and large scale production greenhouse design.
Personal expertise ranges from greenhouse evaluations and design through large-scale restoration construction with an emphasis on systems design for conservatories and research greenhouses.
Public Gardens/Selected Conservatory Projects:
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National Aquarium National Aviary Chicago Botanic Garden Dow Gardens Waterfront Gardens Reynolda Gardens Atlanta Botanical Gardens Buffalo and Erie Botanical Gardens Brooklyn Botanical Gardens Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory Garfield Park Conservatory Dumbarton Oaks Conservatory Cheyenne Botanical Gardens Denver Botanical Gardens Desert Botanical Gardens Belle Isle Conservatory Penn State Arboretum Manito Park Conservatory Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens Matthaei Conservatory Winterthur Museum and Gardens Harkness Mansion & Gardens Bronx Zoo Butterfly House Brucemore Estate Greenhouse |
Enid Haupt Conservatory Longwood Gardens Biltmore Estate United States Botanical Garden Phipps Conservatory Garfield Park Conservatory Frederik Meijer Krohn Conservatory Oglebay Park Conservatory Conservatory of the Two Sisters Franklin Park Conservatory Lyman Plant House Cleveland Botanical Garden The Huntington Library and Gardens Lewis Ginter Botanical Sonnenberg Gardens Oatlands Plantation Callaway Gardens Gardner Museum Garfield Park Conservatory – Chicago, Illinois Birmingham Botanical Garden Conservatory |
SELECTED INSTITUTIONAL PROJECTS
University of Texas – Austin
Payette Architects
Skidmore College
Payette Architects
University of Wisconsin
Miron
University of West Georgia
Cooper Cary Architects
Connecticut Ag. Research
CWA Architects
SUNY Campuses at:
Oswego
Farmingdale
Binghamton
Phipps Conservatory Tropical Rain Forest & Production Greenhouses
IKM Architects
Friends School Research Greenhouse
Episcopal H.S. Science Center
Graham Gund Architects
Yale Biology Complex YBB Greenhouses
Pelli Architects / Freelon Architects
Matthaei Conservatory, University of Michigan
U of M, Architects Office
Dumbarton Oaks Greenhouse
Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates
Denver Botanical Gardens
Tryba Architects
Harvard University – Rowland Greenhouse Harvard University – Weld Hill /Arboretum
KlingStubbins, Architects
National Gallery of Art
Ewing Cole Architects
North Carolina Arboretum
Woolpert Associates, LLP
Harkness Mansion and Gardens – State of Connecticut
CME Architecture
Smithsonian Institution – Production Greenhouses
Architrave PC Architects
University of Pittsburgh
IDC Architects
R.J.Reynolds Mansion Friends of Sapelo Island
University of Georgia Architects
U.S. Botanical Garden
Architect of the Capitol
Indianapolis Museum of Art – Oldfields Greenhouse Bird Haven Conservatory – Joliet Park District
Simmons Associates Architects
City Park Greenhouses
Linfield, Hunter & Junius
Rutgers University
Environetics
Buffalo State College
Cannon Design
Desert Botanical Garden Greenhouses
coLab Design
OARDC, A.&F. Greenhouses
SFA Architects
OARDC, Selby Greenhouses
F.T.C.& H.
Amherst College
Payette Architects
Wellesley College
Ellenzweig Architects
Cornell University
O’Brian & Gere
Connecticut College
Payette Architects
Holyoke Community College
Jacobs
Dumbarton Oaks Greenhouses
MSI
PREVIOUS AFFILIATED WORK AT THESE INSTITUTIONS
Penn State University
Ohio State University
Michigan State Univ.
Iowa State University
University of Nebraska
University of Georgia
Texas A&M University
Florida State University
Columbia University
Harvard University
Univ. of Texas, El Paso
Arizona State University
Conn.Ag. at Yale Univ.
Ciba/Novartis Research
Pioneer Seed Research
American Cyanamid
BASF Research Labs USDA Research Labs
