Introduction
Arthur P. Kroll (13 January 1898 - 29 July 1963) was a German-born American landscape architect.
Early life and education
Arthur P. Kroll was born as Arthur Paul Kroll on January 13, 1898, in Germany, to Julius Henry Kroll (1864–1944) and Ottilie Juliana Herzke Kroll (1873–1955). He had four brothers: Alfred J Kroll (1895–1974), Eric Charles Kroll (1899-1986), Henry Julius Kroll (1900-1967), and Conrad Kroll (1909-2003); and six sisters: Johanna T Kroll (1896–1983), Lydia Hedwig Kroll (1904–1995), Dorothea K Kroll Fisher (1919–2004), Elsie A. Kroll (1903-1990), Margaret Kroll (1902-1978), and Anne Helena (1894-1981).
In 1912, Kroll, aged 14, emigrated to the United States through Ellis Island.
Kroll studied horticulture in England at the estate of the Duke of Marlborough.
Career
In the early 1900s, American railroad executive E. H. Harriman's sons William Averell Harriman (1891-1986) and Edward Roland Noel Harriman (1895–1978) hired Kroll to landscape many acres of their Harriman estate in New York.
In the late 1920s, Kroll provided landscaping services to Pierre Lorillard IV, Newport cigarette tobacco baron, and thoroughbred racehorse owner. Lorillard hired famed architect Bruce Price to design his clubhouse and the many "cottages" of the era along with Kroll, in 1929.
The Krolls stayed in Tuxedo Park, New York until 1946. Later, they relocated to Shawnee on Delaware, in Pennsylvania, and settled in his wife Grace Elizabeth's family homestead that had been built in 1852 by her grandfather. In Pennsylvania, Kroll was employed by Hughes Printing Company until illness forced him to quit in June of 1963.
Over the years, Kroll worked with many influential figures as his clients, such as Charles Campbell Worthington, Angier Biddle Duke (of Duke University fame), Adele Colgate, William Waldorf Astor II, and J. P. Morgan.
Personal life
In the late 1920s, while vacationing in the Poconos, Kroll met Grace Elizabeth Heller (1911–1994), daughter of Melchoir Heller (1882–1956) and Lucinda Dimmick Heller (1886–1969). They were married in 1934 and had a son, Arthur Melchoir Kroll.
Kroll was a member of Shawnee Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania.
Death
Kroll died on July 29, 1963, in Shawnee on Delaware, Monroe County, Pennsylvania. He was 65.