Following his graduation Chambers was unsure of his career path when his brother, Robert, suggested that he come to Paris to study architecture.

He put this theory into practice by taking his students on field trips whenever he was introducing a new concept.

[4] It is during this time that Robert wrote his first novel, In the Quarter, which chronicled the life a student in Paris during the late 1800s.

Walter entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he studied at the atelier of Paul Blondel, it was here he met his future architectural partner Ernest Flagg (1857-1947), a cousin of Cornelius Vanderbilt II.

[1] Returning to New York, Chambers had planned on forming a practice with Ernest Flagg and others.

Usually, Ernest Flagg is credited with some of the work that emerged from their partnership, including, the Singer Building (the world's tallest building from 1908-1909), the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Washington State Capitol and the Sheldon Library at St. Paul's School (Concord, New Hampshire).

Both Walter and Ernest Flagg were favorites of the Clark family of Cooperstown, New York.

Chambers joined with Franco-American architect Emmanuel Louis Masqueray to establish the first atelier for architectural studies in the United States based on the French Ecole des Beaux Arts system.