Ed Lastein prepared this master plan for the Park at Flat Rock.The unexpected death late last week of a seemingly healthy and clearly much beloved citizen of the Village of Flat Rock, North Carolina, has shaken the town. Ed Lastein, a landscape architect, was only 59 when he died as a result of an apparent brain aneurism.
Ed Lastein speaks to the Flat Rock Village Council during planning for the Park at Flat Rock in June 2013.Photo: Hendersonville (NC) Lightning
“You could’ve knocked me over with a feather,” said Bob Staton, mayor of the Village of Flat Rock. Staton said he had just returned from a fishing trip to Canada, where he had been completely out of touch and had no inkling of what had happened, when he was told of Lastein’s death.
“He was a much-loved member of this community and he had a tremendous influence on this place,” the mayor said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
Among Lastein’s numerous contributions to the landscape in and around the Flat Rock community was his years-long devotion to the Park at Flat Rock. After lots of volunteer work on that project, the village hired Lastein to prepare a design for the park.
Realization of that plan, which the village embraced wholeheartedly, is well under way. Once it is finished a few years from now, “the park will be a monument to Ed Lastein,” the mayor said.
The landscape architect also designed much of the landscaping around the Village Hall, or administrative headquarters of the town, as well as sidewalks in the small community.
Sutton noted that at one point he hired Lastein to do some landscaping work at his own home – an outdoor patio area and stone wall, among other elements of the project.
“Ed knows all the people in construction and who is reputable” in that area of the state, Staton said. “He did an outstanding job at our home and he found the right people for the work here” in the village.
