Joseph Randolph Coolidge (1862-1928)

He was born at Boston, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard University (1883). He travelled in Europe before returning to Boston and embarking on a banking career. He left in 1888 to study architecture at MIT and from 1891 to 1894 he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Back in Boston, he started his own firm with Vernon A. Wright, but in 1901 partnered with Harry J. Carlson, establishing Coolidge & Carlson. He lived at 130 Beacon Street and from the late 1920s made his permanent home at Sandwich, New Hampshire. In 1886, he married Mary Hamilton Hill, daughter of Hamilton and Eliza (Robbins) Hill and they were the parents of six children.