Thomas Hastings (1860-1929)

He was born in New York City, a grandson of Henry La Tourette de Groot whose fortune allowed him his education, and a first cousin of the artist and collector Adelaide Milton de Groot who left 212 paintings and a million dollars to the Met Museum. He studied at Columbia University before graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France (1884) where he worked in the studio of Jules Andre. Back in New York, he gained employment with New York's pre-eminent firm of the period, McKim, Mead & White where he met John M. Carrère and they went into practice together from 1885 to 1911. Their most famous work is the New York Public Library which was opened in the same year that Carrère's life was tragically cut short by a car accident. Hastings continued the firm alone and became one of the most revered architects of the Gilded Age. He married Helen, daughter of the stockbroker and yachtsman Elias Benedict. They didn't have children and lived between New York City and "Bagatelle" at Old Westbury, L.I.

He was President of the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design; Member of the Institute of France; Director of the American Institute of Architects; Trustee and Secretary-General of the Museum of French Arts; President of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects; Trustee of the Academy of Arts & Letters; Founder of the Federal Art Commission; President of the Architectural League of New York. His awards included the Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects; Chevalier de La Légion d'honneur in France; and receiving the honorary degree of LL.D. from the Universities of Liverpool and Lafayette.