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(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 façades are in an eclectic style that includes German Renaissance
and French château 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.
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