JACEK VON HENNEBERG

1926 - 2015

VON HENNEBERG, Jacek A longtime resident of Cambridge, Mass., died peacefully Friday, November 6, 2015 at a nursing home in nearby Lincoln. He was 89. Two daughters and four grandchildren survive him. Mr. von Henneberg was born February 16, 1926 on the family estate in Berdowicze, Poland, the youngest of three sons born to Wanda Maria and Wilhelm Karol Henneberg, a prominent Warsaw architect and graphic artist. His education at Warsaw's State College for Building Construction was interrupted by World War II and subsequent service in the underground Polish Home Army, 7th Lancers Regiment. He fought with the resistance against Nazi forces in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 surviving a grenade attack as well as German prisoner of war camps. He managed to escape before the end of the war and joined a Polish II Corps of the 8th British Army in Italy. Mr. von Henneberg was awarded the Polish Cross of Valor for his courage on the battlefield. After the war Mr. von Henneberg studied architecture at the University of Rome and Polish University College, London, before immigrating to the United States where he entered Harvard University's Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Mass. After graduation in 1951 he worked for several local architectural firms, including the renowned Architects Collaborative under Walter Gropius. Mr. von Henneberg's successful application for U.S. citizenship was sponsored by then Sen. John F. Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts. In 1954 Mr. von Henneberg and his brother, Witold, formed their own firm of Henneberg & Henneberg Architects and City Planners. For the next 50 years the Henneberg brothers designed churches, city plazas, schools, pre-fabricated multistory apartment buildings, hotels, single-family homes and numerous interior and renovation projects throughout the New England region. An inveterate traveler fluent in foreign languages and a prolific artist, Mr. von Henneberg was rarely without his sketchbooks, pens, and watercolor paints which he used to create dramatic architectural renderings as well as exquisite portraits. His annual trips abroad to Asia, Europe, and South America, were regularly followed by exhibitions of his work in the Boston area. Mr. von Henneberg had two daughters from his 1959 marriage to Sara (Sallie) Sherman Mitchell. They are Gay von Henneberg Gillies of Jamaica Plain, Mass. and Antea von Henneberg Middleton of San Francisco, Calif. That marriage ended in divorce. A true Renaissance man and bon vivant with a marvelous sense of humor and kind demeanor, the always dapper Mr. von Henneberg was at home on horseback, a cathedral concert, or in a museum gallery. He fully embraced the culture, customs, and politics of his adopted country, without ever forgetting – and often sharing tales of – the history and traditions of his devastated homeland. Memorial Service is being planned at a later date.