Although she lived with more than twenty extremely fine Impressionist works from her parents' collection in a penthouse at 740 Park Avenue during part of the year, she decorated a small pink farmhouse on 1,000-acre (4 km2) portion of her in-laws' estate with the simple New England furniture and craftwork.

Her "Brick House" survives today as a rare and intact example of the Colonial Revival, providing an intimate glimpse into the life of a pioneer collector of America and founder of the Shelburne Museum.

Five rooms from her Park Avenue apartment were installed in a memorial building after her death in 1960, bringing Webb's collection of works by Monet, Manet, and Degas to the museum grounds.

A large pastel by Mary Cassatt, showing a young Electra Havemeyer with her mother Louisine, enjoys a place of honor in the entry hall.

Electra Havemeyer Webb began to collect "in earnest" in 1911, more than a decade before the founding of Colonial Williamsburg and nearly a half century before authentic American antiques would return to the major rooms of the White House.

She worked with the finest antique dealers of the era, including Edith Halpert and Harry Newman, to assemble encyclopedic and irreplaceable collections of American material culture.

[1][5] While the board had considered other ways to care for the items, including mergers and loaning out the collection, the final choice received some backlash in the art community.

[5] In 1910, Electra married polo champion James Watson Webb II (1884–1960)[6] of the Vanderbilt family in an elaborate society wedding at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, New York.

[7] They had five children:[2][8] Recognizing her achievements in the museum field, Yale University awarded Electra Havemeyer Webb an honorary Master of Arts degree in 1956.

[11] Electra's parents-in-law Dr. William Seward Webb and Eliza Osgood Vanderbilt had transformed a collection of rambling lakeside farms on the shore of Vermont's Lake Champlain into a model country estate.