Addison Mizner - Early Career

Early Career

Born in Benicia, California, he traveled as a child around the world with his father, Lansing Bond Mizner, a lawyer and the U. S. minister to Guatemala, who was recalled to the United States in 1891 by President Benjamin Harrison after the Barrundia Affair.

Little is known about Addison Mizner's sketches and artwork prior to his architectural career, but his subsequent work shows him to be a fine draftsman and an artist who painted beautiful watercolors.

Although he lacked formal university training, Mizner served a 3 year apprenticeship in the office of San Francisco architect, Willis Jefferson Polk, eventually becoming a partner. Later, while traveling in Hawaii, he co-authored a book with Ethel Watts Mumford entitled The Cynic's Calendar of Revised Wisdom for 1903. The book was an unexpected success and spawned seven sequels. Later, he also wrote with her The Limerick Up To Date Book (1903) and The Complete Cynic (1910).

He eventually relocated to New York City, where he designed numerous country houses across Long Island and the region. In 1907, he and William Massarene designed White Pine Camp, a retreat in the Adirondack Mountains, later used by U. S. President Calvin Coolidge as his "Summer White House".