Robert Walton Goelet

Robert Walton Goelet (March 19, 1880 – May 2, 1941) was an American financier and real estate developer in New York City. He was one of the largest property owners in the city by the time of his death.[1]

Robert Walton Goelet
Born(1880-03-19)March 19, 1880
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedMay 2, 1941(1941-05-02) (aged 61)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma materHarvard University
Occupation(s)Financier, real estate developer
Spouse
Anne Marie Guestier
​
​
(m. 1921)​
ChildrenBeatrice Goelet
Robert Guestier Goelet
Francis Goelet
John Goelet
Parent(s)Robert Goelet
Henrietta Louise Warren
RelativesSee Goelet family

Early life

Robert Walton Goelet, nicknamed Bertie to avoid confusion with his cousin Robert Wilson Goelet (whom he strongly resembled),[2] was born on March 19, 1880, in New York. He was the only son born to Henrietta Louise (née Warren) Goelet and Robert Goelet (1841–1899), a prominent landlord in New York. His only sister, Beatrice Goelet, who died of pneumonia at age 17 in 1902, was painted as a child by John Singer Sargent.[3]

His paternal grandparents were Sarah (née Ogden) Goelet and Robert Goelet, one of the founders of the Chemical Bank and Trust Company (later known as JPMorgan Chase). His uncle, Ogden Goelet, was the builder of Ochre Court and his two first cousins were Robert Wilson Goelet, the original owner of Glenmere mansion,[4] and Mary Goelet, the wife of Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe.[5][6] His maternal grandparents were George Henry Warren, a prominent lawyer, and Mary (née Phoenix) Warren (herself the daughter of U.S. Representative Jonas P. Phoenix and granddaughter of Stephen Whitney).[3] His maternal uncles were stockbroker George Henry Warren II[7][8] and prominent architects Whitney Warren[9] and Lloyd Warren.[10]

Goelet, and his cousin Robert Wilson Goelet, both graduated from Harvard University with an A.B. degree in 1902 and an M.A. degree in 1903.[11]

Career

Upon the death of his mother in 1915, he inherited a fortune estimated to be $40 million (equivalent to $780 million in 2022),[2] which included 591 Fifth Avenue (a brownstone built in 1880 by Edward H. Kendall at the southeast corner of 48th Street) and her estate at Ochre Point in Newport, Rhode Island, designed by Stanford White and built between 1882 and 1884 and known as "Southside".[12] He was a sportsman and the leader of the city's old-money social set. He was a member of the Jekyll Island Club on Jekyll Island, Georgia.[13]

Goelet served as a director of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company for many years.[14] He was also a member of the advisory board and director of the Chemical National Bank and Trust Company, a director of the Guaranty Trust Company of New York, chairman of the board of directors of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Corporation and a director of the Union Pacific Railroad Corporation.[2]

Real estate holdings

In 1908, he purchased the 10,000 acres (4,000 ha) Sandricourt estate, the former residence of the Marquis de Beauvoir, on the outskirts of Paris.[15] The estate, where he spent much of his time, which he purchased for $300,000, had 139 buildings, grain fields and herds of cattle.[16] He also owned a fishing lodge on the Restigouche River, which separates New Brunswick from Quebec (which he left to his children).[16]

He inherited vast real estate holdings in New York, sometimes known as the Goelet Realty Company, which included the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the property between 52nd and 53rd Streets on Park Avenue which the Racquet and Tennis Club leased.[16] Among his other New York holdings were the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, 14 Sutton Place South, 1400 Broadway, 53 Broadway, and the building on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 37th Street (which he bought in 1909).[17] He also owned sixteen four-story townhouses on Park Avenue built by his father in 1871.[16]

After Goelet's death in 1941, his estate leased the land on which the sixteen townhouses were built, which were torn down and replaced by 425 Park Avenue,[18] which, at the time of the construction, it was one of the tallest buildings that utilized the bolted connections.[19] The 32-story building was open in 1957 with National Biscuit Company,[18] Kaye Scholer, Chemical Corn Exchange Bank as major tenants.[20] It too was torn down and replaced by a new tower at 425 Park designed by architect Norman, Lord Foster, still on land owned by the Goelet family.[21][22]

Personal life

In 1909, Goelet was reportedly engaged to Mary Harriman, daughter of railroad executive E. H. Harriman. The engagement was later denied in October,[23] and Mary married the sculptor and polo player Charles Cary Rumsey in 1910.[24]

In 1920,[25] he became engaged to Anne Marie Guestier (1899–1988),[26] and later married her in Bordeaux on January 24, 1921.[27] Anne Marie was the daughter of Daniel Guestier, a director of the Orleans Railroad "who at one time was said to have been the wealthiest wine merchant of France and the owner of vast estates."[28] She received the French Legion of Honor for aiding French-American wives during World War II and for providing medical services to inhabitants in the vicinity of Sandricourt, the Goelet family estate outside Paris, after it was liberated in August 1944. Together, Anne Marie and Robert were the parents of four children:

  • Beatrice Goelet (1922–2015),[29] who married Hayward Ferry Manice, son of William DeForest Manice, in 1948.[30][31]
  • Robert Guestier Goelet (1924–2019),[32][33] a former Lt. in the U.S. Navy Reserve who was elected a director of the Chemical Bank in 1952.[34]
  • Francis Goelet (1926–1998), a noted philanthropist and patron of the arts who died unmarried.[35]
  • John Goelet (1931-2023), who married Henrietta Fanner, daughter of William Rogers Fanner,[28] and later lived in Paris.[35]

After several months of ill health, Goelet died on May 2, 1941, of a heart attack, aged 61, in his brownstone on Fifth Avenue at 48th Street. After a funeral service at St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue, he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.[2] In his will, he left the Ritz-Carlton Hotel to Harvard University.[16] His widow was given his personal effects and property along with life use of their home on Narragansett Avenue in Newport and their estate in France.[16] His widow lived almost another 47 years until her death in 1988.[26]

Legacy

In 1958, in Goelet's honor, his widow and four children donated $500,000 toward the construction of the Metropolitan Opera's new home at Lincoln Center, where the grand staircase bears a plaque with his name.[14]

As of 2012, the Goelet's Newport estate at Narragansett Avenue and the corner of Ochre Point Avenue, remained in the Goelet family.[36]

References
  1. The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. 35. 1930. p. 417 – via HathiTrust.
  2. "ROBERT W. GOELET DIES IN HOME AT 61. Corporation Director, Owner of Large Realty Holdings Here, Succumbs to Heart Attack. He Inherited $60,000,000. Sportsman, a Leader in Social Circles in Newport and New York, Kin of Early Settlers" (PDF). Retrieved August 19, 2019.
  3. "MISS BEATRICE GOELET DEAD. Only Daughter of the Late Robert Goelet Succumbs to Attack of Pneumonia" (PDF). The New York Times. February 12, 1902. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
  4. "Chester Mansion Restored to Glory. A Battle over Frogs". Times Herald-Record. February 7, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-26. Built by real-estate magnate Robert Goelet, whose family helped found Chemical Bank, the building had been reincarnated as an upscale hotel that ran aground in the 1960s and as a wedding banquet hall that was shuttered in 2007, among other efforts.
  5. "Marriage Announcement". New York Times. September 3, 1903.
  6. Times, Wireless To The New York (7 August 1929). "DUCHESS INHERITS FORTUNE; Former Miss Goelet Receives $3,000,000 From Mother's Estate". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  7. "George H. Warren ... A Founder of Concern That Once Owned Metropolitan Opera's Home, Dies at 87. Kin Of Noted Architect. Graduate of Columbia and Its Law School, but Never Had Practiced. Formerly Broker". New York Times. June 4, 1943. Retrieved 2010-07-25. Warren's wife, Georgia ... Warren, died on Feb. 21, 1937. Surviving are a son, George Henry Warren, Jr.; a daughter, Constance Whitney Warren, ...
  8. Weeks, Lyman Horace (1898). Prominent Families of New York: Being an Account in Biographical Form of Individuals and Families Distinguished as Representatives of the Social, Professional and Civic Life of New York City. Historical Company. p. 604. Retrieved 1 March 2018.
  9. "WHITNEY WARREN, ARCHITECT, 78, DIES; Designer of the Grand Central Terminal and Rebuilding of Louvain Library, Belgium HAD PRACTICAL APPROACH Specialized With His Partner, C. D. Wetrnore. in Railroad Structures, Hotels, Offices". The New York Times. January 25, 1943. p. 13. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  10. "Sleep-Walk Plunge Kills Lloyd Warren; Famous Architect Falls From His Sixth-Floor Apartment in Early Morning. Suicide Theory Discarded. Victim Had Suffered From Somnambulism. Created BeauxArts Institute". New York Times. October 26, 1922. Retrieved 2010-07-25.
  11. The Harvard University Catalogue. 1903. p. 280.
  12. Yarnall, James L. (2005). Newport Through Its Architecture: A History of Styles from Postmedieval to Postmodern. University Press of New England. p. 210. ISBN 9781584654919. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  13. "Death Claims Robert Goelet Financier, 61. Outstanding Business Executive Was One of Largest Property Owners in New York City". Associated Press in the Hartford Courant. May 3, 1941. Retrieved 2010-07-26. Robert Walton Goelet, 61, of New York and Newport, R. I., a financier and one of New York's largest property owners, died today in his old brownstone house at 48th Street and Fifth Avenue, one of the few remaining private residences on the...
  14. "OPERA STAIRCASE TO HONOR GOELET; Family Donates $500,000 for Metropolitan House at Lincoln Sq. Center" (PDF). The New York Times. 24 November 1958. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  15. "R. GOELET BUYS A CHATEAU; Pays $300,000 for Sandricourt -- May Be for His Mother" (PDF). The New York Times. 20 September 1908. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  16. "GOELET WILL GIVES 'RITZ' TO HARVARD; Hotel and Its Site, Taxed on $3,675,000, Go to the University Unrestricted" (PDF). The New York Times. 12 July 1941. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  17. "IN THE REAL ESTATE FIELD; Robert W. Goelet Buys Lexington Avenue Corner -- Deal for Eleventh Street Building -- Park Avenue Purchase" (PDF). The New York Times. 24 June 1909. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  18. "NATIONAL BISCUIT LEASES SIX FLOORS; Will Move Offices From the Chelsea District to New Space on Park Avenue" (PDF). The New York Times. 11 February 1955. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  19. Friedman, Donald (2010). Historical building construction : design, materials & technology (2nd ed.). W.W. Norton & Co. p. 227. ISBN 978-0-393-73268-9. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  20. "BANK LEASES SPACE; Chemical Corn to Have Unit at 425 Park Avenue" (PDF). The New York Times. 18 May 1956. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  21. Clarke, Katherine (1 November 2016). "The resurrection of 425 Park". The Real Deal. Retrieved 28 July 2019.
  22. Young, Michael (15 December 2018). "Norman Foster's 425 Park Avenue Officially Tops Out 897 Feet Atop Midtown East, Manhattan". New York YIMBY. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  23. "Miss Harriman Not Engaged" (PDF). The New York Times. 4 October 1909. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  24. "RUMSEY CHILDREN TO SHARE ESTATE; Daughter of E.H. Harriman Set Up Trust for Dr. W.J.M.A. Maloney, Family Doctor" (PDF). The New York Times. January 3, 1935. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  25. "ROBT. W.GOELET MAY WED MLLE. GUESTIER; New York Financier's Troth to Daughter of Bordeaux Land Owner Reported in Paris. RELATIVES HERE NOT TOLD Rich Bachelor Spends Much of His Time at His Sandricourt Estate in France" (PDF). The New York Times. 9 November 1920. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  26. "Anne-Marie Goelet, Legion of Honor Officer". The New York Times. 4 February 1988. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  27. "ROBERT W. GOELET WEDS MLLE. GUESTIER; Rich New Yorker Married to Daughter of Bordeaux Landowner by a Civil Ceremony" (PDF). The New York Times. 25 January 1921. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  28. "TROTH ANNOUNCED OFF MISS FANNER; She Will Be Married to John Goelet, Who Was Graduated From Harvard in '53" (PDF). The New York Times. 30 November 1954. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  29. "Paid Notice: Deaths MANICE, BEATRICE GOELET". The New York Times. 13 February 2015. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  30. "NUPTIALS SATURDAY FOR BEATRICE GOELET" (PDF). The New York Times. 5 February 1948. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  31. "BEATRICE GOELET, H. F. MANICE MARRY; Daughter of Late Robert W. Goelet Married to Former Lieutenant in the Navy" (PDF). The New York Times. 8 February 1948. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  32. "Goelet, Robert G. (Robert Guestier), 1924- - Biodiversity Heritage Library". www.biodiversitylibrary.org. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  33. "Goelet, Robert G. (Robert Guestier), 1924-". socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu. Retrieved 28 November 2016.
  34. "Chemical Bank & Trust Chooses a New Director" (PDF). The New York Times. 10 July 1952. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  35. Kozinn, Allan (23 May 1998). "Francis Goelet, Philanthropist And Music Lover, 72, Is Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
  36. "Robert Walton Goelet's 'Southside' Estate, Newport, RI: Robert Yarnall Richie Photograph Collection". digitalcollections.smu.edu. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University. Retrieved 19 August 2019.
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