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Herbert Sandor

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Herbert Sandor, was born on July 23, 1926 in Munich, Germany, where his father, David, owned an antiques business and his mother, Johanna, taught Swedish and Dutch. As a child Herb and his friends saw Hitler at rallies as he came into power and saluted the soldiers just to see them say “Heil Hitler” with outstretched arms, clicking their boot heels. The soldiers assumed that they were sons of someone from the party.
As Jews they felt threatened as Hitler rose to power and sought safety in The Hague, where they moved in 1931. Herb had a distinct memory of being in first grade when hot rolls and hot milk were brought to school. “Oh, you could smell the milk, I can still smell it 80 years later,” he said. But Herb never got to taste either as they were only served to children whose parents had joined the Nazi Party. In 1936 and 1937 he went to summer camp in the central part of Holland with Anne Frank.
Just before the Nazis invaded Holland, the Sandor family escaped in May 1939 by sailing to New York on the SS Normandy and arrived on a visitor’s visa. They left their antiques business behind with other family members, many of them then perished during the Holocaust. One surviving uncle housed a portion of their belongings in a warehouse in Amsterdam. When Herb was a young adult he went back to Holland to claim his parents’ goods.
Herb and his family moved to Wisconsin and lived with relatives where he learned English in a one-room school. The family relocated soon after to Atlantic City, N.J., moved on to New York City, and eventually settled in Hunterdon County, N.J., in the mid-1940s.
Herbert was drafted into the Army in 1944 at the age of 18. He served in the 84th infantry and also in the 9th Army Headquarters in Heidelberg, Germany during World War II. Ironic as it seems, he went back to Germany, where he was fluent in the language, to fight for his new country. Although he was already a legal resident, he became a citizen of the U.S. during basic training at Camp Blanding in Ocala, Fla. Soon after, he boarded the luxury liner New Amsterdam in New York City after the boat was converted into a troop ship and sailed with a gun crew to Scotland. Since they wore no ear protection these soldiers were deaf for days that lead to tinnitus that lasted a lifetime. After serving with the 84th infantry he was transferred to 7th Army Finance as head of Payroll Division and personally paid generals. He received an honorable discharge in December of 1946 after Victory in Europe Day as sergeant first class.
Back in the United States Herb attended Rutgers University studying art philosophy and civil engineering. After an advisor suggested that he would be better served if he switched to art school, Herb enrolled in NYU’s Parsons School of Design. He graduated in 1952 where he received the Lady Mendl (a.k.a. Elsie de Wolfe) scholarship to study interior design at Parsons School of Design in Paris and Italy. As one of Parsons’ top third-year students, he was asked by the New York Times to design the elevator lobby in the New York Times building.
Eventually, Herb and his brother, Richard, took over their parents’ long-standing antiques business in Lambertville, N.J., renamed the business H&R Sandor Inc. and moved to New Hope, Pa., where they sold museum quality American antiques. The shop was frequented by luminaries such as the du Ponts, Forbes, Rockefellers, Dorrances, Estee Lauder, Michael Jackson, Brook Shields and serious collectors of those times, as well as museum curators from across the country.
During his lifetime, Herb also had a passion for buying local, run-down commercial properties and turning them into lively, viable spaces for retail businesses including the Four Seasons Mall and York Place in New Hope and County Row just outside of town. He also renovated a huge structure that was once a restaurant at Ingham Springs on Route 202 that was derelict and abandoned for many years and converted it into another one of his antiques shops. Another of his projects was the conversion of a dilapidated, racoon-infested building on that property into a cozy cottage where he and his wife Susan lived for a decade.
During the Reagan administration H&R Sandor found and donated an armchair originally belonging to the White House during the McKinley administration. The chair was donated to the government with Nancy Reagan accepting the gift and posing with the Sandors for a memorable shot.
Herb was an artist, art collector, interior designer, world traveler, a gold medal winning skier, voracious reader, swimmer and an excellent cook. He loved preparing elaborate menus and food for dinner parties with Susan for family and friends in their Solebury home, which he designed, and in the gardens that Susan designed.
His community activities included serving on the New Hope Zoning Hearing Board, New Hope Borough Council, director of New Hope Solebury Bank, vice president of New Hope Historical Society, director at Phillips’ Mill, and he was a founding member of the New Hope Croquet Club.
In 1983, Herb met his loving wife, the former Susan Strenk, and they wed in 1987. Herb took his last breath on April 4, 2022 at the young age of 95 in Susan’s embrace at home in a room shining with love and tears.
He is survived by his wife, Susan Sandor, and Herb’s children: son David Sandor, stepdaughter Mary Lee Anderson, stepson Jim Allen, seven grandchildren, one great-granddaughter and brothers Richard and Bernie.
Graveside services will be held at Solebury Friends Meeting Cemetery at 2680 Sugan Road on Tuesday, May 17, 2022 at 12 p.m.


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