[2] A descendant of Yale University president Ezra Stiles, Ezra Clarke Stiles was born in Painted Post, New York, and graduated from Penn State in 1914 with a degree in Forestry and Landscape Architecture.
He began as a community planner in Charlotte, North Carolina, as an employee of John Nolan, a landscape architect in Boston.
Among his clients were prominent Pittsburgh families (the Scaifes, Corsons, Frownes, and Garmens); corporations (Carnegie Steel Works and Rockwell Manufacturing Corporation), universities (Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina), and city planners (he designed two city parks to mark Pittsburgh's bicentennial).
[5] Stiles wrote at least three books: He and historian Paul C. Bowman drew a lavishly illustrated map of the American Expeditionary Force's participation in World War I's Meuse-Argonne Offensive; it is preserved by the Library of Congress.
[9] He had at least one son, Ezra C. Stiles Jr. (1921-1957), who served as a captain in the U.S. Army Air Forces.