National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

signed his notes to White with the feminine name "Bibi la Poupette" and sometimes referred
to himself in letters in the third person as "Bibi." 1447
Warren & Wetmore's most notable early commission was the New York Yacht Club, designed
in 1899. It was a place where Warren must have come into contact with many of the Vanderbilt
set. Whitney Warren enlarged Idle Hour for William K. Vanderbilt in 1903, and became a close
friend of his. He later took over the design of Grand Central Station from Reed and Stem in
1906, the same year that Frederick Vanderbilt brought him in to make changes at Hyde Park. 1448
Florence Vanderbilt Twombly hired Warren to design her New York City townhouse on Fifth
Avenue and 71 st Street, and her daughter Ruth had him design a tennis court and pool house at
Florham. Warren also designed houses for the next generation of Vanderbilts including 7 East
91 st Street for Adele Sloane and J. Burden as well as Eagle's Nest in Centerport, Long Island, for
William K. Vanderbilt Jr. In 1909, the Warren & Wetmore-designed Vanderbilt Hotel located at
the corner of 34th Street and Park Avenue opened. The Vanderbilts actively supported Warren
& Wetmore giving them the commission for numerous railroad stations and hotels.
Decorators
Ogden Codman, 1449 the Boston-born decorator and architect, was one of the most
influential figures of the 1890s. He lived and studied abroad and attended the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. In 1891 he opened a practice, and in 1893 moved to New York City.
He was best known for his adaptations of French eighteenth-century styles. His influence was
widespread, especially upon the publication of The Decoration of Houses with Edith Wharton in
1897. Codman was particularly skilled at integrating historical motifs into a harmonious interior
with all of the subsidiary decorations, textiles, and furnishings. His usual working method
involved selecting a room for adaptation from his extensive library of books on architecture and
design. He would reproduce the architectural elements accurately, although he might also
combine motifs from different sources to create a historically accurate but original decorative
program. Most of the fabrics, furniture, hardware and other supplies that he used were
imported from France.
A.H. Davenport 1450 was a Boston-based decorating and furniture making firm. They
executed many commissions early on for Henry Hobson Richardson and Peabody and Stearns
before setting their sights on New York. They were well known for their reproduction
furniture. Stanford White was very impressed with Davenport and regularly recommended
1447 Baker, Stanny, The Gilded Life of Stanford White, 277-8.
1448 A lawsuit resulted from this change in architects, for which Reed and Stem were awarded $500,000.
1449 The best work on Ogden Codman is Pauline Metcalf, ed., Ogden Codman and the Decoration of
Houses, (Boston: David R. Godine, 1988). Codman's extensive archives are divided between by The
Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, The Boston Athenaeum, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art and Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University.
1450 Two articles have appeared about A.H. Davenport: Anne Farnham, "H.H. Richardson and A.H.
Davenport: Architecture and Furniture as Big Business in America's Gilded Age," in Tools and
Technologies: America's Wooden Age edited by Paul Kebabian and William C. Lipke (Burlington:
University of Vermont, 1979), 80-92; and Anne Farnham, "A.H. Davenport and Company, Boston
Furniture Makers," The Magazine Antiques 109 (May 1976): 1048-51. The Davenport archives are divided
between the Strong Museum in Rochester, New York, and the Society for the Preservation of New
England Antiquities. Neither repository has material early enough to pertain to this commission.
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