McKim was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
 His parents were James Miller McKim, a Presbyterian minister, and Sarah Speakman McKim.
They were active abolitionists and he was named after Charles Follen, another abolitionist and a Unitarian minister.
 After attending Harvard University, he studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before joining the office of Henry Hobson Richardson in 1870.
McKim formed his own firm in partnership with William Rutherford Mead, joined in 1877 by fellow Richardson protégé Stanford White.

For ten years, the firm became primarily known for their open-plan informal summer houses.
McKim became best known as an exponent of Beaux-Arts architecture in styles of the American Renaissance, exemplified by the Boston Public Library (1888–95), and several works in New York City, including the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University (1893), the University Club of New York (1899), the Pierpont Morgan Library (1903), New York Penn Station (1904–10), and The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio (1919).
 He designed the Howard Mansion (1896) at Hyde Park, New York.
 
McKim, with the aid of Richard Morris Hunt, was instrumental in the formation of the American School of Architecture in Rome in 1894, which has become the American Academy in Rome, and designed the main campus buildings with his firm McKim, Mead, and White.

McKim first married Annie Bigelow in 1874 and after divorcing Bigelow married Julia Amory Appleton in 1885.

McKim died at aged 62 in St. James, New York.
McKim was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania.  His parents were James Miller McKim, a Presbyterian minister, and Sarah Speakman McKim. They were active abolitionists and he was named after Charles Follen, another abolitionist and a Unitarian minister.  After attending Harvard University, he studied architecture at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before joining the office of Henry Hobson Richardson in 1870. McKim formed his own firm in partnership with William Rutherford Mead, joined in 1877 by fellow Richardson protégé Stanford White.
For ten years, the firm became primarily known for their open-plan informal summer houses. McKim became best known as an exponent of Beaux-Arts architecture in styles of the American Renaissance, exemplified by the Boston Public Library (1888–95), and several works in New York City, including the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University (1893), the University Club of New York (1899), the Pierpont Morgan Library (1903), New York Penn Station (1904–10), and The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio (1919).  He designed the Howard Mansion (1896) at Hyde Park, New York.  
McKim, with the aid of Richard Morris Hunt, was instrumental in the formation of the American School of Architecture in Rome in 1894, which has become the American Academy in Rome, and designed the main campus buildings with his firm McKim, Mead, and White.
McKim first married Annie Bigelow in 1874 and after divorcing Bigelow married Julia Amory Appleton in 1885.
McKim died at aged 62 in St. James, New York.
Charles Follen McKim