Clarence Hatzfeld Papers

Clarence Hatzfeld was born in 1873 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His family moved to Chicago around 1880, and his father, Richard Hatzfeld became a successful businessman who owned drug stores around the city. Clarence studied architecture in Chicago and around 1899 became partners with Julius Huber. Beginning in the mid-1890s, Hatzfeld was a member of the Chicago Architectural Club where he met and exchanged ideas with a number of important architects working in the city.

In 1896, Hatzfeld married Laurette [Laura] Haentze. They had a daughter, Beatrice, in 1902. In 1918, they divorced, and Laura and Beatrice moved to California.

In 1901, Hatzfeld went to work for the Chicago Board of Education where he worked under such renowned architects as William B. Mundie and Dwight H. Perkins. While working for the Board of Education, Hatzfeld also opened his own private practice in 1902. In 1910, he resigned from the Board of Education and went into practice with colleague Arthur Knox, forming Hatzfeld & Knox, which operated for about five years. Hatzfeld continued on his own for about 25 years.

Hatzfeld designed a wide variety of buildings, beginning with residences. With commissions from his father- and brother-in-law who developed real estate, Hatzfeld designed approximately 20 homes for the Villa neighborhood in northwest Chicago. Hatzfeld also designed over two dozen park fieldhouses, beginning with Independence Park. Masonic temples also became a Hatzfeld specialty. He designed other businesses and apartment buildings, as well.

By the mid-1930s, the Great Depression took its toll, and Hatzfeld closed his private office and went to work directly for the Chicago Park District, managing a number of fieldhouses, including some he had designed. In 1939, mandatory retirement forced him to leave Chicago and take a job for the Federal Works Administration in Washington, D.C. It appears that in this capacity he did some work on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Clarence Hatzfeld died in 1943.