William Adams Delano (January 21, 1874 – January 12, 1960) was an American architect and a partner with Chester Holmes Aldrich in the firm of Delano & Aldrich. The firm worked in the Beaux-Arts tradition for elite clients in New York City, Long Island and elsewhere, building townhouses, country houses, clubs, banks and buildings for colleges and private schools. Moving on from the classical and baroque Beaux-Arts repertory, they often designed in the neo-Georgian and neo-Federal styles, and many of their buildings were clad in brick with limestone or white marble trim, a combination which came to be their trademark.
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Early life and education
Delano was born in New York City on January 21, 1874, and was a member of the Delano family of Massachusetts. His parents were Eugene Delano (1844–1920) and Susan Magoun (née Adams) Delano (1848–1904). His father was an 1866 graduate of Williams College and a partner in Brown Brothers & Company banking and trading group. Among his siblings was Moreau Delano, also a banker with Brown Brothers, and two sisters: Caroline Delano, who married Augustus B. Wadsworth (a director of the Wadsworth Center), and Susan Delano, a botanist who married Charles W. McKelvey.
His paternal grandparents were Moreau Delano and Sarah Ann (née Abrams) Delano. He was a distant cousin of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Through his maternal aunt, Mary Elizabeth Adams Brown, he was the nephew of John Crosby Brown, the head of Brown Brothers & Company. Mary Elizabeth Adams (Brown) was the minister William Adams sister, who was Delano's maternal grandfather, and for whom he was named. The minister William Adams' wife was Martha Bradshaw Magoun, who was the maternal grandmother of Delano, and she was the daughter of Thatcher Magoun (associated with the Thatcher Magoun clipper and 60 State Street) and Mary Bradshaw. Previously the minister William Adams was married to Susan Patten Magoun, sister of Martha Bradshaw, before Susan Patten died. A further connection between the families resides in the offspring of John Crosby Brown and Mary Elizabeth's six children, with a son Thatcher Magoun Brown named in honor of Thatcher Magoun, along with daughter Mary Magoun Brown, and their eldest child William Adams Brown, who like Delano was also named in honor of their grandfather the minister William Adams. Furthermore, Delano's father Eugene had made partner with the Philadelphia house of Brown Brothers & Co., meanwhile his mothers middle name is Magoun.