[3][4] Baldwin was born on May 30, 1903, in Roland Park, Maryland and studied architecture at Princeton, dropping out after two years.
[2] Starting in 1935, Baldwin was employed by Ruby Ross Wood, and when she died in 1950, he took over the firm.
They decorated the White House of John F. Kennedy, and designed the houses and apartments of many well-known people, such as Cole Porter, Mary Wells Lawrence, Billy Rose, Rachel Lambert Mellon and Paul Mellon, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Mike Nichols, Harvey Ladew, Babe Paley and William S. Paley, Pauline de Rothschild, Greta Garbo, Barbara Hutton, and Diana Vreeland.
[5] Baldwin's commercial clients included the Round Hill Club in Greenwich, CT, the Kenneth hair salon in New York City, and La Florentina in the South of France.
Adam Lewis published the biography Billy Baldwin: The Great American Decorator in 2010.