Landscape Architect—and Beloved Abuela of 4—Mia Lehrer Is Building a Legacy That Spans Generations
Not many grandmothers can take their grandchildren to a park that they designed and named after their native homeland, but this is the reality for Los Angeles-based landscape architect Mia Lehrer, founder of Studio-MLA. Growing up in El Salvador, Lehrer’s family frequented a promontory point overlooking the ocean called Vista Hermosa, or Beautiful View, that was surrounded by a the most unique landscape. “We also visited Puerta del Diablo with all these impressive rocks around,” Lehrer recalls. Memories of those beautiful places came flooding back years later when she found herself designing Vista Hermosa Park in Los Angeles, which was the first new public park in downtown Los Angeles in more than 100 years when it opened in 2008. Today, it’s one of her favorite places to take her grandchildren—ages, 3, 6, and 8.
For Lehrer, it’s a full-circle moment. “Whenever we visit any of the places I’ve designed, I tell them why I did certain things and I ask them if they like it,” Lehrer says. “I explain to them that when I make my design decisions, I consider the texture and color of the plants, and what the trees do. I’ve always encouraged them to be conscious of the world around them, just as I was encouraged to do when I was their age.”
As a child, Lehrer often took nature walks with her Salvadorian grandmother, whom she called Oma, to collect flowers for bouquets. “El Salvador was a magical place,” she says. “There were orchids and bromeliads and enormous tropical trees that provided shade from the sun; visual cues like volcanoes, beaches, and waterfalls within 30 minutes of the city; and noisy frogs, parrots, and parakeets that would move across the city depending on what the fruit trees were doing.”
It was there that Lehrer’s parents and grandparents really cultivated her love of the outdoors. She remembers her family always tracking El Salvador’s bird migrations with binoculars. “My dad was involved in a lot of land preservation projects, and my grandmother and I were always outside picking up eggs from the chickens or fruit from the trees so we could make tartas de fruta,” she says.
Now, when Lehrer takes her grandchildren to any of the places she’s designed—like SoFi Stadium, with its expansive parks and plazas, or to the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum Nature Gardens, where she watches them jump over rocks and cross a wooden bridge to overlook a pond—, she can’t help but feel a sense of joy and nostalgia, a sharing of the wonders of the outdoors that she experienced as a kid. “There’s a particular satisfaction as a grandmother when I see the kids enjoying these spaces, just as I used to do with my Oma.”
This story was created as part of From Our Abuelas in partnership with Lexus. From Our Abuelas is a series running across Hearst Magazines to honor and preserve generations of wisdom within Latinx and Hispanic communities. Go to oprahdaily.com/fromourabuelas for the complete portfolio.
ANA PELAYO CONNERY is a Florida-based writer whose work has appeared in USA Today, CNN, HGTV magazine, House Beautiful, Oprah Daily, Latina, Travel + Leisure, Real Simple, and more.
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