William Worth Hatch died March 4 in his sleep at his home in New Orleans. Known to family and friends as Bill, he was 48 and the cause of death was cancer.
Born in New York City, he was the son of investment banker Raymond Hatch and paddle tennis Hall-of-Famer Edwina “Winnie” Worth Hatch. A descendant of Dutch New Amsterdamers on his father’s side and Sag Harbor whaling captains on his mother’s, he valued the past while never allowing it to hold undue sway over the present. Growing up on New York’s Upper East Side, he was a longtime parishioner at Brick Presbyterian Church. The Hatches split summers between family houses at Bridgehampton and Great Sacandaga Lake in the Adirondacks. Winter weekends were spent skiing in Vermont, where the family maintained another home in Dorset. A man who valued friendship highly, Mr. Hatch had lifelong associations in all of these communities, survivors said.
Mr. Hatch graduated from the Trinity School in New York City in 1983, distinguishing himself above all in analytic thinking, spoken argumentation and the written word. He went on to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science under the mentorship of the legendary Rex Neaverson. At Trinity he was a member of Saint Anthony Hall (Delta Psi), a founding member of the Monday Night Club and a writer for the school newspaper, the Trinity Tripod. Survivors said his letters to the editor were memorable, ranging from the piquant to the infamous, and that at Trinity, Mr. Hatch excelled in impromptu debate, cowboy billiards and outlandish pranks. He was an accomplished reveler and a gifted raconteur, skills that he honed throughout his life.
Upon graduation, Mr. Hatch moved to London and then to Ketchum, Idaho, where he worked as a staffer for Sun Valley’s newspaper, the Idaho Mountain Express. In 1990 he matriculated at Tulane University Law School, setting down roots in New Orleans, the city to which he would return two decades later. He completed law school at Fordham University and entered the New York firm of Haythe & Curley, where he specialized in financing transactions and mergers and acquisitions. Later he worked in the New York office of the Canadian law firm Tory’s LLP, which absorbed Haythe & Curley in a 2000 merger. In New York, Mr. Hatch was a member of the University Club, the Racquet & Tennis Club and the Down Town Association. On Long Island, where he loved to play tennis, golf and frolic in the surf, he was a member of the Bridgehampton Club.
Mr. Hatch left the practice of law in 2009 to attend to his ailing mother, who died in Southampton later that year. He then moved to New Orleans, where he lived the last years of his life in an 18th-century courtyard house on Bourbon Street. Neighbors on his block included Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, the oldest bar in the United States. In New Orleans, instead of re-entering the law, he worked as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and a counselor for youths living with HIV/AIDS.
Trinity classmate James G. Harper described Mr. Hatch as “independent-thinking and iconoclastic, equally at home on Park Avenue or among the demimonde. Adventurous and curious, he was an inveterate traveler, and visited scores of countries and all but one of the world’s continents. A blue-blooded egalitarian, he had friends from all walks of life. He insisted however on honesty and a measure of charm and wit; he was the relentless scourge of phonies. He had a ranging sense of humor and loved to laugh, and all who knew him will remember the signature ‘Hatch laugh.’ Eruptive, authentic and joyous, with the rhythm of a Gatling gun’s burst, it was audible above even the loudest party’s roar.”
Friends note wryly that he died on Mardi Gras, on Bourbon Street.
Mr. Hatch is survived by his sister, Diana Huntting Hatch of Houston; his aunt Courtia Worth of Connecticut; an aunt and uncle, Merwin and Theron O. Worth of New York City; his cousins and their families, and a legion of devoted friends.
No services are planned.
Memorial donations may be made to the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreation Center, Box 1197, Bridgehampton, NY 11932, a charity supported by his family for decades.
on Mar 10, 2014