George Champlin Mason (1820-1894) was born and raised in Newport, RI to a prominent local family. As a young man, Mason traveled through Europe, where he studied architecture and drawing. He started his architectural firm in 1860. Mason's first commission was Starboard House, a large stone summer cottage located on Narragansett Avenue in Newport.

Mason’s interests were not limited to architectural design. Before he launched his career as an architect, he was, at the age of 29 named editor of the Newport Advertiser and was a correspondent for the Providence Journal and the New York Evening Post. Even during the height of his career as an architect he wrote several books such as Newport and its Cottages (1875) and The Old House Altered (1878). In 1854 he was one of several prominent Newporters that helped to found the Newport Historical Society. Mason was also a trustee of Newport Hospital from its foundation in 1873 and was a director of the Redwood Library (America's oldest lending library) for over thirty years. He designed its East Wing, known as the Delivery Room.

Some of Mason’s more visible works that survive today include the Jeremiah Stitts House (1879), which is the present day Elks Lodge on the corner of Pelham Street and Bellevue Avenue and the Fort Adams Commandant House (1873), the building was used as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Summer White House from 1958 to 1960.

Other notable designs included Chepstow (1861) built as the summer residence of Edmund Schermerhorn (and presently open for tours by the Preservation Society of Newport County) and the United States Naval War College Administration Building (1882), which was his last commission.

In 1873 Mason designed his own home, Woodbine Cottage on Old Beach Road. For his house, he chose the Swiss Chalet style, which he had grown fond of during his travels in Europe. Externally the house has an over-hanging second story, broad projecting eaves, and gables (filled with tracery of a Swiss chalet), pretty balconies, a beautiful piazza and terrace.

At the time of its completion, the house garnered attention for its intricate exterior woodwork and beautiful interior. After Mason's death in 1894 the house remained a single family home until 1996 when Sheila and Harlan Tyler acquired the property and transformed it into the Architect's Inn. They had lovingly restored many of the rooms and furnished it with period antiques. Just as Sheila and Harlan started to consider retirement, they were sought out by old friends and colleagues, Nick and Brian, who now help run the Inn for them and continue to share this elegant private home with guests from around the world.