[1] He was the third son of Anna Elizabeth (née Gladding) and Elisha Smith Aldrich, a dry-goods merchant.

[1] While there, he produced watercolor drawings for the firm's successful entry into the New York Public Library design competition.

[2] When they located their practice on the third floor of a house in New York City, they used tables on loan from his former employer, Thomas Hastings.

[1][2] From this modest start, Delano & Aldrich became "one of the most productive and accomplished architectural practices in the first half of the twentieth century in America.

[1][3] Together they are responsible for designing some of the most famous Beaux-Arts buildings in New York; including Kykuit mansion at the Rockefeller estate in Westchester County, and the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale for the Grand Central Art Galleries.

[2] Some of these include the Charles Lindbergh home in Hopewell, New Jersey; the Kips Bay Boys Club in New York City; the Colony Club in New York City; the Chapin School in New York City; the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore, Maryland; the Philadelphia Orphanage in Wallingford, Pennsylvania; Wright Memorial Dormitory and Day Missions Library at Yale University; and the Russell Sage Music Hall at Northfield, Massachusetts.

I've never seen his enthusiasm flag, I've never seen his ideas grow stale, I've never seen his taste waiver, and chief of all, I've never seen him slacken in that thing which we're always told is the very essence of genius—the 'infinite capacity for taking pains.

[1][3] From 1917 to 1919, during World War I, he was the director general for civil affairs of the American Red Cross Commission to Italy.

[2] He also founded his charity, Aldrich Farms, a Staten Island country retreat for boys requiring rehabilitation after being discharged from New York City hospitals.