In 1879, his mother, Mary de Leftwich Dodge, an aspiring artist, moved her family to Europe.

Dodge received early commissions that gained him attention in the United States, first at the Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago where his mural "Glorification of the Arts and Sciences" adorned the interior dome of the Administration Building.

He became known as a muralist when the genre was at a peak of popularity, commissioned for major public buildings as well as hotels and mansions.

Achieving success with commissions for his murals, Dodge designed his family home in Setauket, Long Island, in 1906, the classical Villa Francesca, named after his wife.

Her mother was a civic activist and author who published several books in the early 1900s; her father was an attorney and became a justice of the New York State Supreme Court.