Brooks Kolb was educated at the American College in Paris, University College London, and the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn he trained under Ian McHarg, famed author of Design With Nature, and with Laurie Olin, subject of the 2024 documentary Sitting Still. After coming out of the closet, he moved to San Francisco, where he witnessed two key periods of gay history: the post-Stonewall era of sexual liberation and the tragic AIDS epoch. The principal of Brooks Kolb LLC Landscape Architecture and an avid swimmer, Brooks lives in Seattle with his husband, Dennis, and their dog, Stella.