Robert I. Toll

Robert Irwin Toll (December 30, 1940 – October 7, 2022) was an American businessman who co-founded the luxury homebuilder company Toll Brothers.

Robert Irwin Toll^[1] was born to a Jewish family, the son of Sylvia (née Steinberg)^[2][3] and Albert Toll, he grew up in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.^[1] His father, who emigrated from Ukraine,^[4] was a millionaire investor who lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929.^[5] His first job was at Camp Powhatan in Otisfield, Maine where he was a counselor; it is now known as Seeds of Peace and is dedicated to bringing together Arab, Israeli, Indian, and Pakistani teenagers to promote peaceful conflict resolution.^[1] In 1963, he graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University; and in 1966, he earned an LL.B. degree, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.^[6] In 1967, Toll and his brother Bruce E. Toll founded Toll Brothers with a focus on building luxury homes ($500,000+)^[5] starting with a plot of land in Chester County, Pennsylvania given to them by their father.^[7] They grew the business using a conservative financial model always including a 10 percent cushion into all their projects and never assuming price appreciation during construction.^[7] Bruce was responsible for the book-keeping and Robert the legal side of the business.^[5] In the late 1980s, they expanded out of the Northeast to Washington, D.C. and in the mid-1990s, to California.^[5] The Tolls are credited with mass-producing luxury housing by taking a few standard home styles and increasing the scale several fold.^[7] Toll Brothers later expanded into building “active-adult” communities for the elderly affluent and urban high-rises for the newly affluent (Toll Brothers City Living).^[7]

In 2010, Toll stepped down as CEO of Toll Brothers although he still remained active in its management.^[8] In November 2013, Toll Brothers purchased Shapell Homes (founded by Nathan Shapell) for $1.6 billion.^[9]

In 1990, the Tolls sponsored 58 third graders in a program called Say Yes to Education guaranteeing a college education to each of them.^[6] He served on the board of directors of the Cornell Real Estate Council, the Metropolitan Opera, Seeds of Peace, and Beth Shalom Synagogue in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania.^[6] He was a long-time fundraiser for the American Red Cross and the American Cancer Society.^[10]

Toll was a member of the Democratic National Finance Committee during the Obama campaign.^[6][11] Toll also served on the Board of Overseers at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania where he established the Albert & Sylvia Toll Scholarship Foundation, named after his parents.^[6] In 2005, Toll was named CEO of the Year by Professional Builder Magazine. In 2007, 2008, and 2009, he was named the "Best CEO in the Homebuilders & Building Products industry" by Institutional Investor magazine.

Toll was married twice.^[1] In 1975, he married his second wife Jane (née Snyder Goldfein).^[12] They lived in Miami Beach, Florida.^[6] She has one son from her first marriage; Toll had two daughters from his first marriage; and they had a son and daughter together.^[5] As of March 2018, he was worth an estimated $1 billion.^[13]

Toll died in New York City from complications of Parkinson's disease on October 7, 2022, at the age of 81.^[14][15]