Knickerbocker Club ca. 1915

Architects William Delano and Chester Holmes Aldrich excelled at interpreting and adapting the architecture of Colonial America and the early Republic. The architects specialized in designing socially exclusive New York City clubs, for whom the Anglo-American past had rich associations.

As a young architect, William Delano designed this facility for the Knickerbocker Club, an offshoot of the Union Club, in the Federal style. Delano wrote, “I felt the elaborate façades of the prevalent French School did not fit in New York,” and drew inspiration instead from the more understated expression of his father’s townhouse on Washington Square.