William Welles Bosworth (1869-1966)

He was born at Marietta, Ohio, and first studied Beaux-Arts architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston (1889). He travelled to Europe with William Robert Ware, Editor of the American Architect, and later returned to study Georgian Architecture in London with the classical artist Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema. In 1896, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and on returning to the States joined the firm of Carrère & Hastings who had then just won the commission to design the New York Public Library. In 1907, he was commissioned by John D. Rockefeller to lay out the gardens at Kykuit, working closely with Delano & Aldrich, and the designer, Ogden Codman. Bosworth designed the AT&T Building (1916) in Manhattan and MIT's Cambridge Campus. In 1924, Rockerfeller placed him in charge of the project funded by him to restore the Palace of Versailles, Château Fontainebleau and Notre-Dame de Reims. He founded the University Club of Paris and the following year (1936) semi-retired to the family home he built outside the city, "Villa Marietta". He was awarded the French Legion d'Honor and the French Cross of the Commander of the Order of Arts & Letters, one of only a handful of Americans ever to receive such honors. He was elected into - and became a Member of - the U.S. National Academy of Design.