‘A modern Renaissance man’: UKLA honors Horst Schach, community at 50-year anniversary event

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 19, 2025) — Approximately 50 years ago, the University of Kentucky Department of Landscape Architecture (UKLA) experienced a groundbreaking moment: the UK Board of Trustees approved the landscape architecture program. Two years later, the Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture (BSLA) program earned its accreditation from the American Society of Landscape Architects.

UKLA, administered by the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment (CAFE) and now housed at the Gray Design Building with the UK College of Design, has graduated more than 650 students from the BSLA program since its inception.

At the recent UKLA: A Salute to Legacy and Leaders, current department chair Chris Sass, Ph.D., recognized the program’s commitment to building a “family” over the years in front of current student scholars, colleagues, advisory board members, alumni and guests.

“This feeling of family is what I think has bonded many of our faculty, staff, students and alumni,” Sass said. “This program, and its reputation, has been built on years of producing practice-ready graduates. Next year, we begin our 50th year as a named department, which ultimately led to becoming the accredited program we have today. I’m so proud and honored to be a part of this family.”

Professor Emeritus Horst Schach, now retired, was UKLA’s founder and first department chair and developed the original BSLA program. Bill Henkel, former UKLA faculty member at Martin-Gatton CAFE, honored Schach for his lifetime achievements at the event.

Henkel originally met with Schach in 1973 to discuss enrolling in the landscape architecture program. From that moment, a mentorship and friendship blossomed, growing over many years as the two became professional colleagues.

Henkel emphasized Schach’s visionary outlook when introducing him at the event.

“When Horst first came to Lexington in 1969, there was no landscape architecture program or curriculum available in Kentucky — there was no real presence,” Henkel said. “Through persistence and patience, Horst was able to design and develop what we now know as UKLA. We are growing stronger each year because of Horst’s original vision.”

‘A man of many interests’

Author, antique car restorationist, dancer, fisherman, gardener, international traveler, master woodturner and furniture maker, military veteran, and sausage and wine maker are just a few of Schach’s many interests.

Schach’s passion for landscape architecture began during his childhood.

Born in Germany during World War II, Schach was sent to live with distant relatives in a small town called Calenberg. The patriarch of the family was a forester who worked for an estate owner and was provided with housing in a privately owned park. The park was originally built in the 1800s and had a variety of tree species, much like a smaller arboretum.

“This was the beginning of my love and appreciation of nature,” Schach said. 

In 1952, Schach moved to the United States with his mother and began learning English. Schach moved around a lot since his stepfather was in the military. One of those destinations was El Paso, Texas, where Schach worked in a garden center that was also a landscape contractor. This was the moment, during his junior year in high school, when Schach made his first attempt at drawing a landscape design.

“It was a typical foundation planting, as the saying goes,” Schach said. “Two tall ones at the corners, flat ones in the middle and two round ones by the door.”

After graduating high school, Schach went to Texas Tech and majored in park administration, which eventually became a landscape architecture degree program. After graduating, Schach pursued a master of landscape architecture degree at the University of California at Berkeley. For two years at Berkeley, Schach was a teaching assistant in the Department of Landscape Architecture, working with landscape architect notables Leland Vaughan, Geraldine Scott and Mai Arbegast. 

After graduating, he planned to return to El Paso and teach part time at New Mexico State University, but instead Schach was drafted into the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, eventually graduating from officer candidate school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Schach drove his 1964 Corvette from El Paso to his military posting in Panama. The Corvette still sits, fully restored, in Schach’s garage.

After the military, Schach was hired by UK as a full-time instructor in the Horticulture Department.

“They offered me a course teaching landscape design and planting design, neither of which had been taught for some time,” Schach said. “At the time, there were less than 10 students enrolled in the department. My role was to teach those two courses and recruit new students.”

As student interest grew, so did the curriculum. Schach added courses in the history of landscape architecture and landscape construction. More support came from UK and landscape architecture practitioners in Kentucky, who wanted the program to expand and a degree in landscape architecture rather than horticulture. 

In 1972, Schach put forth a proposal to create a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture. Student enrollment continued to grow, and Schach hired more local practitioners to assist in studio instruction. 

While the program was growing, so was the profession nationwide. There was a strong movement to create licensing requirements in every state.

In 1975, Schach asked the American Society of Landscape Architecture Committee on Guidance of New Programs to evaluate UK’s landscape architecture program for accreditation. In 1976, the UK Board of Trustees approved the Landscape Architecture Program and changed the name to the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, and Schach was named the first Chair of the program. In 1978, the Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board granted a two-year accreditation.

The next decade and beyond was spent improving the facilities and studio labs for Schach’s students.

“Fortunately, the College of Agriculture responded by developing a plan to renovate the upper level of the E.S. Good Barn as dedicated studio space for our program,” Schach said. “In 1992, we moved all studio activities to the new facility.”

Over the years, the program has maintained its accreditation, added more faculty positions and established a selective admissions standard while remaining administratively connected to Martin-Gatton CAFE. Today, landscape architecture students share their classes with other creative majors in the Gray Design Building.

Schach has spent decades improving spaces and providing consulting for people in Kentucky. He served on the Rural and Urban Design Assistance Team, which provided design and planning assistance to local communities of all sizes without consultation fees. He was appointed to the Lexington-Fayette County Government Greenspace Commission to protect critical parcels of land from any use other than agriculture.

Schach also worked on a number of recognized and published residential gardens in Lexington and became involved with zoning issues and laying out housing developments, including thoroughbred horse farms.

“While those who are not from Kentucky might not see that horse farms are a critical agricultural endeavor, to those of us living in the Bluegrass region, the farms are a major part of our identity and support much of our tourist industry,” Schach said. “To me, they also represent an excellent model for land management.”

In 2012, Schach retired as an emeritus professor. Schach has since remained connected and values the program’s commitment to producing successful graduates. 

“The ultimate test of the quality of our program is the success of our graduates,” Schach said. “Many have entered private practice, either by joining larger firms or starting their own professional companies, some of which have achieved national and international recognition. A number of those have become chairs of departments at universities across the country. My hope is that our alums continue to grow the profession and create career opportunities for future graduates.” 

The Horst Schach Scholarship fund supports BLSA students in their pursuit of academic growth, design ability and studio engagement during their first year of courses. Scholarship awards began in 2016 and have supported 23 students to date.

In 2026, a special collection of Schach’s work will be housed in UK’s Margaret I. King Library.

“Horst exemplifies someone who is a landscape architect and truly embraces his world with curiosity and gusto,” Henkel said. “Horst has a lust for life, a childlike curiosity and a fearless spirit to explore and understand. He’s a person of many interests and truly a modern Renaissance man.”

Legacy and Leaders Awards

At the event, in the spirit of Schach’s commitment to the program, additional legacy and leader awards were presented, honoring former students, alumni and colleagues for their service and achievement in the field of landscape architecture. The award recipients included:

• Department Chair Service Award: Billy Van Pelt II, realtor at Justice Real Estate; Bill Henkel, landscape architect at Joesph Hillenmeyer Garden Design; and Mark Taylor, principal, The Architerra Group

• Younger Timer Alumni Honoree: Travis Klondike, associate research professor at North Carolina State University

• Old Timer Alumni Honoree: Jennie Russell, faculty emeritus at the University of Cincinnati, and John Carman, senior principal at CARMAN

• Horst Schach Lifetime Achievement Award: Jon Henney, landscape architect, retired, Gresham-Smith

View photos from the UKLA: Legacy and Leaders event. 

To learn more about the Department of Landscape Architecture at Martin-Gatton CAFE, visit https://ukla.mgcafe.uky.edu.