Harold I. Pratt

Harold Irving Pratt (1877 - 29 May, 1939) was an American oil industrialist and philanthropist.

Early life

Pratt was born in 1877, the son of Charles Pratt and Mary Helen Richardson.

He was brother to Frederic B. Pratt, George Dupont Pratt, Herbert L. Pratt and John Teele Pratt; and half-brother to Charles Millard Pratt.

He was a graduate of Amherst College.

Career

Pratt was a director of Standard Oil of New Jersey, now Exxon. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1923-1939. Pratt was also president of the board of trustees of Brooklyn Hospital, and treasuer of the Pratt Institute.

Heritage

In 1944, his widow, Harriet Barnes Pratt, donated the family's four-story mansion on the corner of 68th Street and Park Avenue and this became the CFR's new headquarters, Harold Pratt House, where it has remained to the present. The limestone-clad building was designed by Delano & Aldrich in the Beaux Arts style

Welwyn, the family home built in 1913 at Glen Cove, Long Island and designed by architects Delano & Aldrich, is now the Nassau County Museum. Welwyn's grounds consist of 204 acres of significant botanical interest. The beach is unusually sandy, as Pratt had all the stones removed.

Pratt donated a new natatorium (swimming pool complex) to Amherst College in 1900.

Pratt's son, Harold Irving Pratt Jr, had his portrait done by John Singer Sargent in 1924, when he was 20 years old. This artwork is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In World War II, a liberty ship, number 3044, the "Harold I. Pratt", was named in his honor.

Personal life

He married Harriet Barnes (1879-1969), a wealthy New York philanthropist, collector of Americana, and horticulturist. She served on several White House advisory committees on furnishings from the Coolidge to the Truman administrations. In 1925, she was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge as chair of the first committee created to advise presidents and first ladies and make recommendations on White House acquisitions and decor. In 1941, through the concerted efforts of Mrs Pratt, Eleanor Roosevelt agreed to the establishment of the Subcommittee upon Furniture and Furnishings and Gifts for State Rooms of the White House to be placed under the United States Commission of Fine Arts. Mrs Pratt served as its chair and a member until 1947.

Children:
* Harold Irving Pratt Jr (1904 - 1975)

Pratt died at Glen Cove, Long Island of pneumonia, on 29 May, 1939.

External links

* [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,931280,00.html Time obituary]
* [http://nynjctbotany.org/lgtofc/lgwelwyn.html Welwyn Preserve article]
* [http://jssgallery.org/Paintings/Mugs/10274.html Harold Irving Pratt Jr's portrait]