Herbert Lee Pratt

Herbert Lee Pratt (November 21, 1871 – February 3, 1945) was an American businessman and a leading figure in the United States oil industry. In 1923, he became head of Standard Oil of New York; his father Charles Pratt was a founder of Astral Oil Works, which later became part of Standard Oil. He lived and worked in New York City, as well as having a country estate, The Braes in Glen Cove, Long Island, and a hunting preserve and estate, "Good Hope Plantation" in Ridgeland, South Carolina. He was also an art collector and philanthropist.

He took a degree of Bachelor of Arts at Amherst College in 1895, a classmate of future president Calvin Coolidge.

In 1931, when Socony merged with the Vacuum Oil Company, Pratt was elected chairman of the board of the new Socony-Vacuum Corporation, which had capital of $1,000,000,000. Pratt retired as chairman on June 1, 1935, after forty years of service. who married Allan McLane Jr., a son of Judge Allan McLane, in 1919. They divorced in 1934 and she married Howard W. Maxwell Jr., a grandson of John Rogers Maxwell Sr., in 1946. Herbert Lee Pratt Jr. (1900–1974), who married Hope Gordon Winchester, daughter of Lycurgus Winchester of Baltimore, in 1926. Harriet Balsdon Pratt (1901–1978), who married Lawrence Bell Van Ingen, son of Edward Hook Van Ingen Jr., in 1923. They divorced in 1938, and later that same year she married Donald Fairfax Bush. Florence Gibb Pratt (1905–1965), who married Francis Edward Powell Jr., son of Francis Edward Powell who represented the Standard Oil Company in Germany and later in England. Frederic Richardson Pratt (1907–1966), who married Pauline Dixon Dodge; after his death, she married landscape architect Richard K. Webel in 1969.

On January 2, 1935, his wife died at their New York residence, 1027 Fifth Avenue. Pratt died on February 3, 1945, at the age of 73 at 834 Fifth Avenue, his home in Manhattan, New York City. After a funeral at St. James' Episcopal Church on Madison Avenue and 71st Street, he was buried in Pratt Cemetery, the family cemetery in Lattingtown, New York. In 1916, the 12-story 907 Fifth Avenue building, also designed by Carpenter, was completed, and Pratt, then vice president of Standard Oil, rented the largest apartment, 25 rooms and eight baths, occupying the entire top floor, at an annual rent of $30,000. It was the first building developed to replace one of the mansions previously fronting on Central Park.

His country estate, "The Braes", in Glen Cove, Long Island, was built in 1912–14 and designed by James Brite in the neo-Jacobean style. It was the largest of the six Pratt family mansions at Glen Cove. It is now part of the Webb Institute. Pratt also built "Homewood" for his daughter Edith and "Preference" in Lattingtown for his daughter Harriet, both designed by Carrère and Hastings.

In 1910, Pratt bought the Good Hope plantation and hunting lodge in South Carolina (about five miles (8 km) from Ridgeland) from Harry B. Hollins, also of Long Island. He also spend some time at the Caughnawana Fishing and Hunting Club in Quebec, Canada.

Philanthropy Pratt was an art collector, particularly of portraits and miniatures. In 1937, he was elected a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When Rotherwas Court, Herefordshire, England, was dismantled and auctioned in 1913, Pratt purchased the dining room for his neo-Jacobean mansion "The Braes," then under construction as a country estate in Glen Cove. His bequest to Amherst College included the Rotherwas Room and more than 80 American portraits and miniatures, as well as an extensive collection of decorative arts. The Rotherwas Room was incorporated into the Mead Art Museum, when it was built at Amherst College in 1949. The Pratt was saved, salvaged and towed to port.