[2] In 1891 Douthitt was commissioned to furnish the mansion of Edward Lawrence Keyes, whose wife Sarah was a noted New York hostess, at 930 Fifth Avenue.

[3] Douthitt was also active as a publisher, in 1892 bringing out William Richard Bradshaw's science fiction novel The Goddess of Atvatabar with illustrations by Cyrus Durand Chapman, and in 1896 his own Manual of Art Decoration (second edition 1902).

In May 1894 he was publicizing the claims of the cyclist Thomas Stevens to have found a genuine "wonder-working Yogi" in India with whom he would soon be touring the United States.

[5] The John F. Douthitt Company went into receivership in 1908, after losing $50,000 in the Gilsey House,[6] a luxury hotel that eventually closed in 1911 after lengthy legal disputes concerning the lease.

In an apparent attempt to recover his fortune, Douthitt became involved in a scheme of J. P. Persch[7] to sell bonds in an Independent Brewing Company that turned out to be fraudulent.