Thomas Hastings

Thomas Hastings (March 11, 1860 – October 22, 1929) was an American architect, a partner in the firm of Carrère and Hastings (active 1885–1929). Biography He was born in New York City to Thomas Samuel Hastings, a Presbyterian minister, and Fanny de Groot. Hastings came from a colonial Yankee background, his ancestor Thomas Hastings having come from the East Anglia region of England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. Hastings's father was president of the Union Theological Seminary. His grandfather, also named Thomas Hastings, was the composer of the hymn Rock of Ages. He married Helen Benedict of Greenwich, Connecticut. Hastings abandoned his college preparation courses to work with the chief designer at Herter Brothers, the premier New York furnishers and decorators. He later traveled to Paris to study in the atelier of Louis-Jules André, returned to the U.S. to found the firm of Carrère and Hastings with John Merven Carrère. Their first major commissions came from a parishioner of Hastings' father, Florida developer Henry Flagler. The partners undertook two hotels for Flagler, the Ponce de Leon Hotel (1885–1888) in St. Augustine, Florida (now part of Flagler College) and the Hotel Alcazar (now the Lightner Museum), followed by a succession of St. Augustine hotels and churches. The firm's most famous project was undoubtedly the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street—not only an important example of its type but one of New York's most recognizable landmarks. They were also instrumental in creating the profession of urban planning, with Carrére's influential designs for Cleveland, Hartford and Atlantic City. Their varied work included the Manhattan Bridge (1899), the House and Senate Office Buildings in Washington, and Blairsden, the C. Ledyard Blair estate in Peapack, New Jersey (1896), one of the nation's greatest country houses.