James Brown Lord (26 April 1859 — 1 June 1902) was an American architect who worked in the Beaux-Arts style and practiced in New York City. His Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State was his most prominent commission, noted at the time of his premature death, at the age of forty-three.[1] He designed one of the first of the Carnegie libraries, the Yorkville Library of the New York Public Library, at 222 East 79th Street.
Lord was born in New York, into a distinguished family, the son of James Couper Lord and grandson of Daniel Lord, a prominent lawyer in New York. His mother was a daughter of James Brown, founder of the firm that became Brown Brothers Harriman. He graduated from Princeton University in 1879 and apprenticed in the architectural office of William A. Potter. While in Potter's office he helped design the buildings for Union Theological Seminary, at Park Avenue and 70th Street (demolished). He was a member of the Tuxedo Club and designed many of the buildings at Tuxedo Park, New York.
He married Mary Townsend Nicoll, of a distinguished New York family and was a member of the Metropolitan Club, the Union League, the Players Club, the Racquet Club and professionally of the American Institute of Architects and the National Academy of Design, where he was a Fellow. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.
His early commissions, from 1883, were for residences in New York; Yonkers, Roslyn, Long Island; Tuxedo Park, New York; and Bar Harbor, Maine.[2]