The spiteful family feud behind one of New York’s oldest and most luxurious hotels

A visitor to today’s recently restored Waldorf Astoria might be dazzled by the Art Deco design, the luxurious lobby, and the ghosts of all the actors, inventors, and heads of state who made it their temporary home. What that visitor might not realize is that “the hypen”—as the hotel was called before the hyphen was officially dropped in 2009—got its start as two separate but neighboring hotels, the Waldorf and the Astoria. And both hotels were born out of a bitter family feud waged in the Gilded Age by an arrogant heir and his strong-willed, socially powerful legend of an aunt. The story begins with William Waldorf Astor (second image), the heir who wasn’t content with his good fortune. Great-grandson of New York’s first multimillionaire John Jacob Astor, “Willie” grew up in a mansion at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street. His father, John Jacob Astor III, took over as manager of the Astors’ enormously profitable real-estate holdings through much of the 1870s and…