Principal, Charles Adams Platt, Architect, New York, NY, 1890-1933. Trustee, American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy, 1919-1933; President, American Academy in Rome, Rome, Italy, 1928-1933.

Member, Society of American Artists;

The Charles Adams Platt (1861-1933) Collection, is held at the Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, New York, NY; the papers of his sons, William and Geoffrey, are also housed at Avery.

Coursework, National Academy of Art, New York, NY, 1878; coursework, Art Students League, New York, NY, 1879;

Born in New York, NY, Platt spent his youth in Manhattan. He traveled in Europe between 1882-1886, and spent most of the summer of 1887 at the Cornish Arts Colony in New Hampshire. Platt became a talented painter and landscape architect as well as an architect. He built a weekend home at Cornish and maintained a residence in Manhattan with his wife and five children. He died at the Cornish House.

His parents were John Henry Platt and Mary Elizabeth Cheney Platt;

Platt married twice; his first wife was Annie Corbin Hoe, whom he married in early 1886. He met Hoe while he was an art student in Europe; she died the following year, 1887. He then married Eleanor Hardy Bunker in 1893, with whom he had five children. Two of them, William (1897-1984) and Geoffrey (1905-1985) became architects, who designed a handful of country houses in Puget Sound, including the Garrett House (The Highlands, Seattle, WA, 1936), Milburn House (The Highlands, Seattle, c. 1935) and Lakewold (Lakewood, WA, a 1910 house renovated by the Platts for Corydon Wagner, Jr., c. 1950).

Born in a wealthy household, Platt could afford an extended Grand Tour in Europe between 1882-1886; he joined the Parisian studio of Jules Joseph Lefebvre between 1884-1885, supplementing this training with informal studio work with other well-heeled friends. Platt gained fame for his book, Italian Gardens (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1894), and frequently designed the landscape gardens surrounding his country houses. Platt later in his career took on some large-scale commissions, most notably the design of the Freer Gallery, Washington, DC, (1913-1918), buildings at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, IL, and the campus plans of Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, and the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

• New York, NY (Architect's Birth)
  New York, NY

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• Cornish, NH (Architect's Death)
  Cornish, NH

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