(b New Brunswick, NJ, 6 Feb 1847; d New York, 18 Mar 1918). American architect. He trained (1865-70) in the office of Detlef Lienau in New York. After setting up his own practice, Hardenbergh built (1871-3) a chapel, a library (destr.) and a geology building (destr.) at Rutgers College, New Brunswick, NJ, a commission obtained through family connections. Success came after 1879, when he built the Vancorlear, an early apartment block, on W. 55th Street, New York. This building brought him to the attention of Edward S. Clark, head of the Singer Sewing Machine Co., who had bought a plot of land between the present W. 72nd and 73rd Streets and Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Clark commissioned Hardenbergh to build a housing development (1880-86) for three different social classes, comprising row houses (some destr.), lower-middle-class apartments and, on the most valuable part of the plot fronting on to Eighth Avenue, a daring foray into the luxury apartment market, now known as the Dakota Apartments (1880-84). The fa?ades are in an eclectic style that includes German Renaissance and French ch?teau elements. For the Astor Estate in New York, Hardenbergh went on to build the lavish Waldorf Hotel (1893; destr. 1931) and Astoria Hotel (1896; destr. 1931), which established him as a leading architect for luxurious Edwardian hotels. Other such works in New York included the Martinique (1897) and the Plaza (1907; interior altered), and elsewhere the Windsor (1903) in Montreal, Canada, the Willard (1906) in Washington, DC, and the Copley Plaza (1912), in Boston, MA.
See the Abbreviations for further details.
