He played a pivotal role in Connecticut land preservation, and founded the journal The Good Companion Chess Problem Club.
In Litchfield, John White purchased a large plot of land and built a Victorian mansion, which he named "Whitehall.
[4] That same year, he was awarded the Lantham Prize by the American Dante Society for his essay, “A Translation of the Quaestio de aqua et terra, and a Discussion of its Authenticity.”[5] He then studied at Columbia University in New York, attaining a master's degree in 1904.
"[7] Over the following five years, White and his sister May acquired properties that bounded the lake in an effort to preserve their natural beauty, eventually amassing some 60 percent of the lakefront.
They hoped to dedicate this land to what historian Peter Vermilyea calls "practical conservation," making the lake available for affordable summer cabins, youth camps, and convalescent homes.
According to Foundation president Arthur Hill Diedrick, "Alain White was a very unpopular man in his time because he took what was productive farmland for conservation, and people said, 'Who is this pariah coming in and changing the environment?
"[13] As a problemist, White was deeply influenced by his father's friend, the problem solver and collector Russell Sage Jr.
[15] In 1914, White founded the Good Companions Chess Problem Club, to which many well-known problemists belonged, and published its eponymous journal.