 Arthur Page Brown was born in Ellisburg, New York, in Jefferson County; he was descended from Yankees from New England.His formal education in architecture consisted of a year at the Cornell University School of Architecture, but he left in 1879 to join the newly established architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White.From 1883 to 1884 he traveled extensively through Europe, where he was influenced by Beaux-Arts architecture, based on Neoclassical and Renaissance styles.