He was born in Paris on August 15, 1866,[1] while his Cincinnati, Ohio, parents, who had married on March 28, 1865, were on their planned year-long honeymoon, which was extended six months due to the birth of their son.

[3] In 1894, after three years in London, Anderson was appointed first secretary of the American embassy in Rome and then, in 1897, served for several months as chargé d'affaires, until he resigned to return to the U.S. for his wedding to Isabel Weld Perkins.

"[8] When Anderson was appointed Minister to Belgium, he had an elaborate diplomatic uniform made for himself in London by the firm of Davies & Son, tailors to British royalty.

According to sources cited by his biographer, Anderson's diplomatic record was an embarrassment to President William Howard Taft; the Senate Foreign Relations Committee refused to confirm him as United States Ambassador to Japan in 1913 even after he had assumed his post there.

Richard W. Leopold, reviewing a volume of Anderson's letters, wrote that they contained "little of value": Comments on those vital economic, social, and intellectual forces that shape foreign policy are wholly absent.

[12]George E. Mowry wrote that Anderson "never allowed his official duties to interfere with his lengthy and verbose unofficial reporting of society's meaningless activities ...

If the selections published are a true sample of the bulk of the writings that Mr. Anderson chose to preserve for posterity, they say little for the author and as little for the government that hired him for responsible positions.

"[14][15] In 1896, while serving as First Secretary at the United States Embassy in Rome, Italy, Anderson met Isabel Weld Perkins, a young debutante from Boston who was then on her grand tour of Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land.

Larz and Isabel were married at Arlington Street Church in Boston on June 10, 1897,[1] and they embarked on a life of luxury combined with public service and adventure.

He was eligible for membership in the Society of the Cincinnati by virtue of being the great grandson of Lieutenant Colonel Richard Clough Anderson of Virginia, one of the founding members of the organization.

Anderson died in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and was interred at Washington National Cathedral,[18] where his remains rest in the St. Mary Chapel with those of his wife.

[19]Visiting Prague in 1906, Anderson wrote of "narrow, winding, dirty, smelly streets with hooknosed Jews peering out of cellar doors.

Known as Anderson House, the mansion was the couple's winter residence during the Washington social season, which generally extended from New Year's Day through Easter.

She occasionally stayed in the house, but preferred her own small, rustic summer camp in a rural area of southern New Hampshire that she used as a writing retreat and for visits with her relatives.

At the time they acquired the property, it included a shingle-style summer home that had been built in 1881 by Boston architect Edmund M. Wheelwright for Isabel's cousin William Fletcher Weld II.

Over time, the couple acquired an additional 7 acres (2.8 ha) of adjacent land, where Larz built three smaller mansions that were used as guest housing and storage.

Larz directed that architectural design elements from Lulworth Castle, an ancestral home associated with the Roman Catholic branch of the Weld family, be incorporated into the structure.

Following her death, the remaining nine plants were donated to the arboretum, including an 80-year-old hinoki cypress that had been given to the Andersons by the Imperial Household shortly before they left Japan for the last time.

[26] During the time they were in Tokyo, Japan, the garden of the American Embassy was adorned with a gilded bronze eagle sculpture which stood in front of the structure.