His sister, Elinor, later married novelist William Dean Howells, and his younger brother Larkin Goldsmith Mead became a sculptor.

[1] His father was a prominent lawyer, and his mother was the sister of John Humphrey Noyes, the Oneida Utopian.

Mead attended Norwich University for two years, where he joined the Alpha chapter of Theta Chi fraternity.

[2] He later learned architecture under George Fletcher Babb in Russell Sturgis's[2] office in New York City.

[3][4] In 1902, King Victor Emmanuel conferred on Mead the decoration of Knight Commander of the Crown of Italy for his pioneer work in introducing the Roman and Italian Renaissance architectural style in America.

[1] Mead retired in 1920 and died on June 30, 1928, in a Paris hotel room from a heart attack, after an illness of several weeks, with his wife at his side.