A legend in the field of landscape architecture, Cabell B Robinson, has created some of the finest golf courses in the world. In the first of an exclusive two part interview, we learn about the warm American gentleman who worked with Robert Trent Jones before setting up his own design practice based on the Costa del Sol.

You started your career with the renowned architect Robert Trent Jones.
How did this come about?

I graduated from college with a history degree but decided to become a landscape architect. I had no idea where to go, but somebody said that Harvard had everything, so I applied and got into the graduate school of design there.

The first day of class the chairman of the department, who was then a very well known landscape architect in America introduced me to Rees Jones (son of Robert Trent Jones). He said that we were the only two students in the class. We were in a sort of special situation in that Rees had a political science major from Yale, and I’d gone to Princeton and had my history degree. We knew nothing about design. So in the end we were taking undergraduate and a couple of graduate courses to prepare us, because Harvard had no undergraduate programme in landscape architecture. So Rees and I became very good friends. I took his invitation and called him at his fathers office one summer. He said that his father liked me, and that I had a job there if I ever wanted one. Of course back then I had no idea what I was being offered any more than I knew I was going to be a golf course architect. But I went on to the University of California at Berkeley, and got my second degree in landscape architecture.

By then I knew I wanted to work in landscape architecture and began full-time employment in Robert Trent Jones’s office in New Jersey, October 1967. So that’s how I got into it, purely by luck. With so many people writing to me today and asking ‘how do you get into it’, ‘can I work with you?’ etc. it’s taken me a while to realise how fortunate I was to land in this particular field.

So I worked with Mr. Jones for three years in New Jersey, but I didn’t like New Jersey though the town he lived in was very nice, Montclair. All around it were industrial towns like Newark and Patterson, and sort of the unattractive parts of northern New Jersey.

I decided I really wanted to go back out West. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but thought I’d be happier, and I’d given Mr. Jones 18 months notice of resignation, which was pretty fair, but he took no notice of my notice!

It took a while before Robert finally believed me, and in the end said ‘look, we’re getting active in Europe, would you like to open an office for me in Europe?’. I had no interest in Europe whatsoever because I was a little naive and had my heart set on going out West. He put me on a trip, and I eventually agreed that, yes, I would stay at least two years with the intention of going back to the States. Thirty seven years on I’m still here, which makes me either stupid, or means that I like it here! So in a nutshell that’s how I got to where I am today.

He’d already done and opened Sotogrande by then, and Las Brisas was open. We were negotiating with a second course in Nueva Andalucia which was Los Naranjos. He was also talking about what became Valderrama. Those were the first two projects that I worked on when I got here. Mijas, Los Lagos, started very soon thereafter, as did La Manzanilla. And we’re still working on La Manzanilla! That’s my longest running project - 35 years and it’s still on hold! It’s close to Fuengirola, nearly touching the corner of Los Lagos at Mijas. At the time in 1972 we had five courses under construction here on the coast.

I now work alone, and don’t need a whole lot of work to support myself. I don’t rely solely on Spain, though sometimes I work more here than elsewhere. I have a fair amount of work in Morocco, Cyprus, France and Italy.