George Charles Boldt Sr.

Engraved 1916 letterhead of The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel with vignettes of the hotel as well as those of the Waldorf and Astoria Hotels in New York all of which were then operating under the management of George Boldt.

George Charles Boldt Sr. (April 25, 1851 – December 5, 1916) was a Prussian-born American hotelier. A self-made millionaire, he influenced the development of the urban hotel as a civic social center and luxury destination.

Career In 1864, he immigrated to the United States. The Empire State Building now occupies its site at 34th Street and 5th Avenue. He is credited with popularizing Thousand Island dressing at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where he instructed the maître d', Oscar Tschirky, to include it on the menu. The hotel introduced other popular food items, such as Waldorf Salad. Boldt also owned the Waldorf Astoria Segar Company, which imported fine Cuban cigars and was located at the hotel. (At the time of his death, the Waldorf Astoria Segar Company was valued at $US 1 million.) He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York.

Legacy Boldt once owned Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower property, receiving it as payment for a debt. Tesla mortgaged the property to Boldt and the Waldorf-Astoria to pay the costs of his residence at the hotel when he encountered financial difficulties. Tesla did so first in 1904 and again in 1908; he was unable to repay the mortgages. Boldt and the Waldorf-Astoria foreclosed on the property in 1915.

He was a trustee of Cornell University. In 1923, Boldt's daughter, Mrs. Alfred G. Miles, donated US$50,000 to the university for the construction of Boldt Tower to honor her father's memory. Boldt Hall is also named for him. Three bricks from the original structure of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel were incorporated into the building. Saying that his father always sympathized with an eager student whose only impediment to higher education was a lack of funds, Boldt's son George C. Boldt Jr. established a scholarship program at Cornell bearing his father's name in 1922.

During his lifetime, Boldt was a frequent donor to Cornell University, the American Red Cross, many local hospitals and built a library at Alexandria Bay, New York. Boldt also helped put at least 75 young men through college, doing this anonymously. He also assisted those in business who were having financial difficulties and told employees at his hotels if they were having monetary problems, his door was always open to them.

Boldt's will equally divided US$15 million between his son and daughter, with a request to his children that they continue to financially support the charities he had donated to in the past. While the will gave his children the right to dispose of any or all of Boldt's properties, they made no plans to sell any of their father's holdings, with George Charles Boldt Jr. assuming the presidency of the company his father began.

Family From his marriage to Louise Augusta Kehrer, he had two children: George Charles Boldt Jr. and Clover Louise Boldt, later Mrs. Alfred Graham Miles, and three granddaughters.

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