Charles Delevan Wetmore (1866-1941)

He was born at Elmira, New York. He graduated from Harvard University (1889) and Harvard Law School (1892). He also took an interest in architecture and designed three dormitory buildings at the Harvard Law School campus before deciding on a legal career. In the late 1890s, he commissioned McKim, Mead & White to build his country home and the task of drawing up the plans fell to the socially prominent Whitney Warren, recently returned from ten years of study in Paris. Warren was so impressed by his client’s architectural ability that he persuaded Wetmore to leave the law and they established Warren & Wetmore in 1898. Warren was the principal designer of the firm and used his social connections to provide them with clients while Wetmore became the firm's legal and financial specialist. Warren & Wetmore went on to become one of the most important architectural firms during the Gilded Age. In 1917, Wetmore married Sara Dayton Thomson, the ex-wife of Frederic Newell Watriss, and they had at least one son.