Warren and Wetmore

Partners

Whitney Warren was a cousin of New York's Vanderbilt family, and spent ten years at the École des Beaux Arts. There he met fellow architecture student Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, who would in 1897 join the Warren and Wetmore firm. He began practice in New York City in 1887.

Warren's partner, Charles Delevan Wetmore (usually referred to as Charles D. Wetmore), was a lawyer by training. Their society connections led to commissions for clubs, private estates, hotels and terminal buildings, including the New York Central office building, the Chelsea docks, the Ritz-Carlton, Biltmore, Commodore, and Ambassador Hotels. They were the preferred architects for Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroad.

Whitney Warren retired in 1931 but occasionally served as consultant. Warren took particular pride in his design of the new library building of the Catholic University of Leuven, finished in 1928, which he wanted to carry the inscription Furore Teutonico Diruta: Dono Americano Restituta ("Destroyed by German fury, restored by an American gift") on the facade. This post-war propaganda was never added to the building. The library was severely damaged by British and German forces during World War II, but was completely restored after the war.

The architectural records of the firm are held by the Dept. of Drawings & Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.

Commissions

The firm's most important work by far is the construction of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, completed in 1913 in association with Reed and Stem. Warren and Wetmore were involved in a number of related hotels in the surrounding "Terminal City".

Among the firm's other commissions were:

the Racquet House at the Tuxedo Club, Tuxedo Park, New York, 1890-1900

Newport Country Club, Newport, RI, 1895

Westmorly Court, part of Adams House at Harvard University 1898-1902

New York Yacht Club Building, 1899–1901

High Tide, William S. Miller residence, Newport, RI 1900

10 West 56th Street, the Edey Mansion, 1901

Kirby Hill Estate (Eric Kuvykin Mansion), Long Island, New York, 1902

the Marshall Orme Wilson House, 1903

the Brooklyn Department of Street Cleaning's Stable and Chateau, Brooklyn, New York, 1904

Sidney Dillon Ripley House, 16 East 79th Street, 1905

49 East 52nd Street, Vanderbilt guest house, New York City, 1908

Marion P. Brookman Mansion, 5 East 70th Street, New York Coty, 1910 (demolished c. 1973)

Green-Wood Cemetery Chapel, New York City, 1911