Before the house at Sagamore Hill, Lamb & Rich designed a frame house and stable in Oyster Bay for “Mr. W.L. Vandewirt.”[1] This name appears nowhere else and is very likely a misspelling, possibly an egregious one (the American Architect turned Talbot J. Taylor into “Albert J. Talbot”).
It seems possible that Roosevelt heard about the firm through a neighbor. One wonders whether there is a Long Island historian who knows Mr. Vandewirt’s true identity…
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[1] “Summary of the Week,” The American Architect and Building News 11:338 (17 June 1882), 289.