Babb, Cook & Willard was a New York City-based
architectural firm established in 1884 that designed many important houses and commercial buildings. The principals of the firm were
George Fletcher Babb (1836–1915), Walter Cook (1843–1916), and Daniel W. Willard.[1] Willard left the firm in 1908, and was replaced by Winthrop A. Welch. The firm was subsequently renamed Babb, Cook and Welch until 1912, when it became Cook and Welch.[2]
Walter Cook
Partner Walter Cook was born in New York and graduated from
Harvard College in 1869.[3] He further studied at the
Royal Polytechnic School in Munich and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.[3] He returned to New York in 1877 and worked there as an architect until he died on March 25, 1916, aged 70.[3]
Works
Andrew Carnegie Mansion, 2 East 91st Street, New York City, designed to be "most modest, plainest, and most roomy house in New York"
"The Clearing", a Colonial Revival estate house built around 1889 for John Hornor Wisner, a merchant in the China trade, at what is now the
Reeves-Reed Arboretum