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.

Biography Robert Irwin Toll was born to a Jewish family, the son of Sylvia (née Steinberg) and Albert Toll, he grew up in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. was a millionaire investor who lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929. 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. In 1967, Toll and his brother Bruce E. Toll founded Toll Brothers with a focus on building luxury homes ($500,000+) 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. In November 2013, Toll Brothers purchased Shapell Homes (founded by Nathan Shapell) for $1.6 billion.

Philanthropy and accolades In 1990, the Tolls sponsored 58 third graders in a program called Say Yes to Education guaranteeing a college education to each of them.

Toll was a member of the Democratic National Finance Committee during the Obama campaign. 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. They lived in Miami Beach, Florida.

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