Background
William C. Haskell was born in 1869 in Detroit, Michigan, United States.
William C. Haskell was born in 1869 in Detroit, Michigan, United States.
He completed his education at the College of the City of New York. Later the young man studied architecture at Cooper Union and in the Atlier Masqueray of the Society of Beaux Arts.
At the age of nineteen entered the office of George E. Harding, where he was employed as draftsman until 1897. During that year Mr. Haskell began practice in association with Ralph Townsend, and in 1903 Charles A. Steinle became the third partner in the firm.
From the start of his career Mr. Haskell was identified with the design of a number of large hotels planned in the firm's offices of which the most important were the old Savoy, the Herald Square, and the Hotel Willard. The partners were also architects of the Marbridge Building in New York, the Oliver Ditson Building in Boston, the Ouray Building at Washington, D.C., and Best and Company's store, Fifth Avenue and 35th Street, New York.
In later years Mr. Haskell became interested in planning Co-operative Apart¬ments and in Westchester County pioneered in that field of activity. In 1915 he moved to New Rochelle where he subsequntly designed the Pelham Arms, the Pelham Manor and other large Apartments. He also participated in municipal affairs, serving on the Board of City Development which later became the City Planning Board, and was one of the organizers and the first Chairman of the New Rochelle Planning Council of Westchester County.