Alice Warder Garrett was born Alice Warder, the daughter of Benjamin H. Warder, a successful business man from Springfield, Ohio. She was born in Washington DC in 1877. She was married to John Work Garrett in 1908. For much of their marriage, John worked as a United States diplomat, and he and Alice lived in Rome and other European cities.

In September of 1914 she and her husband were living in Paris when word came of an imminent German attack on the city. They managed to get out of Paris and went to the American Embassy in Bordeaux. During the First World War, Alice volunteered at several field hospitals and saw first hand the brutalities of war. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover selected Alice's husband to be Ambassador to Italy.

Alice's involvement in the arts began at an early age and continued throughout her life. She took voice lessons, and gave formal vocal performances throughout her life. She was also actively interested in painting and drawing, music, theater, architecture, and writing. During her life she was acquainted with many of the leading artists of the time including Ignacio Zuloaga, Leon Bakst, Edith Wharton, Ezra Pound, Marcel Proust, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Evergreen Mansion in Baltimore, where she and her husband lived, is decorated with an extensive collection of paintings that Alice collected, including works by Pablo Picasso, Raoul Dufy, and Amedeo Modigliani.

Alice was involved in philanthropic works that strove for a greater presence and accessibility to the arts in America. Alice sat on the board for the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Baltimore Society of the Friends of Art. She was heavily involved in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and she frequently gave lectures on art and history.