Painter, etcher, writer and architect, Charles Adams Platt was born in New York City. He studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League in New York and at the Académie Julian in Paris. Platt learned etching from Stephen Parrish in 1880 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He often depicted New England in his prints and from 1880 to 1890 he produced more than one hundred etchings. Platt was associated with the Old Lyme Art Colony and in 1914, when the original members incorporated as the Lyme Art Association, Platt designed the gallery for their summer exhibitions. The building was constructed in 1921.