The Helmsley Building on Park Avenue in New York City is one of Warren and Wetmore’s more notable commissions
Warren and Wetmore was an architecture firm based in New York City, a partnership established about 1889 by Whitney Warren (1864–1943) and Charles D. Wetmore (1866–1941). They had one of the most extensive practices of their time, and were especially known for having designed many large hotels.
Partners
Whitney Warren
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. He began practice in New York City in 1887.
Warren's partner, Charles Delevan Wetmore (usually referred to as Charles D. Wetmore), was a lawyer by training. 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. They were the preferred architects for Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroad.
Whitney Warren retired in 1931 but occasionally served as consultant. 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. This post-war propaganda was never added to the building. The library was severely damaged by British and German forces during World War II, but was completely restored after the war.
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. Warren and Wetmore were involved in a number of related hotels in the surrounding "Terminal City".
Among the firm's other commissions were:
the Racquet House at the Tuxedo Club, Tuxedo Park, New York, 1890-1900
Newport Country Club, NewportNewport Country Club, Newport, RI, 1895
Westmorly Court, part of Adams House at Harvard University 1898-1902
^Dunlap, David W. (December 18, 2012). "When Trade Shows Were Both Central and Grand". New York Times. Retrieved June 26, 2013.
^"Warren Evening Times". June 9, 1916. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
^The Broadway League (October 17, 2021). "St. James Theatre – New York, NY". IBDB. Retrieved December 26, 2021.
Bibliography
Pennoyer, Peter and Walker, Anne. The Architecture of Warren & Wetmore New York: W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 0-393-73162-6.
External links
Media related to Warren and Wetmore at Wikimedia Commons
"Warren and Wetmore" at New York Architecture Images
High-resolution photographs of the interior of the New York Yacht Club
Warren & Wetmore architectural drawings and photographs, 1889-1938Held by the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University