Clarence Hatzfeld

Clarence Hatzfeld (1873–1943) was a prolific Chicago architect who designed residences, park field houses, Masonic temples, banks and other commercial buildings in the Craftsman, Prairie, and Revival styles.

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Clarence was the son of a German immigrant father, Richard Hatzfeld and an American-born mother, Emma Drake Hatzfeld. When he was a child, Hatzfeld’s family moved to Chicago and his father, who was a pharmacist, soon opened a drug store in Lakeview on the city’s North Side. After attending college, Hatzfeld’s early architectural training was “largely in the office of the late Julius Huber.” Son of architect John Paul Huber, Julius Huber was a locally prominent architect who designed many residences in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. Hatzfeld worked for Julius Huber for several years, was promoted to partner in 1899, and the firm became known as Julius Huber & Co. During this period, Hatzfeld became an active member of the Chicago Architectural Club, where he became acquainted with “many aspiring designers who would make important contributions to the burgeoning Prairie style of architecture including Henry Webster Tomlinson, Hermann von Holst, Birch Burdette Long, Robert Spencer Jr., Irving K. Pond, and Dwight Heald Perkins.”

In 1901, Hatzfeld left Huber’s firm to work as a draftsman for the Chicago Board of Education, first under head architect William B. Mundie, and later under Dwight Heald Perkins, with whom he was already acquainted through the Chicago Architectural Club. Under Perkins’s leadership, a large collection of earth-toned brick Chicago Public School buildings were constructed with simple terra cotta details conveying his own distinct expression of the Prairie style. Among them are Carl Schurz, Cleveland, and Tilton schools.

Hatzfeld was married to Laurette Haentze (who went by Laura), a music teacher and daughter of a prominent German family who helped Clarence in his career. He was permitted by the Board of Education to accept private commissions, and both Hatzfeld’s father-in-law, Richard Haentze, and brother-in-law, Albert Haentze, hired him to design buildings for their real estate ventures. Albert and partner Charles M. Wheeler developed residences on the city’s Northwest side, and Hatzfeld designed many properties for them, including more than a dozen for the landmark Villa District which advertised and that every home was “a little gem of beauty and comfort.” Hatzfeld produced plans for a number of these after forming partnership with another Board of Education architect, Arthur Knox, in 1905.

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