Warren and Wetmore

Whitney Warren was a cousin of New York's Vanderbilt family, and spent ten years at the École des Beaux Arts.

There he met fellow architecture student Emmanuel Louis Masqueray, who would in 1897 join the Warren and Wetmore firm.

Their society connections led to commissions for clubs, private estates, hotels and terminal buildings, including the New York Central office building, the Chelsea docks, the Ritz-Carlton, Biltmore, Commodore, and Ambassador Hotels.

Warren took particular pride in his design of the new library building of the Catholic University of Leuven, finished in 1928, which he wanted to carry the inscription Furore Teutonico Diruta: Dono Americano Restituta ("Destroyed by German fury, restored by an American gift") on the facade.

The firm's most important work by far is the construction of Grand Central Terminal in New York City, completed in 1913 in association with Reed and Stem.