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.

Early life Robert Walton Goelet, nicknamed Bertie to avoid confusion with his cousin Robert Wilson Goelet (whom he strongly resembled), and Mary Goelet, the wife of Henry Innes-Ker, 8th Duke of Roxburghe. 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). His maternal uncles were stockbroker George Henry Warren II and prominent architects Whitney Warren and Lloyd Warren.

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.

Career Upon the death of his mother in 1915, he inherited a fortune estimated to be $40 million (equivalent to $ million in ), 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.

Goelet served as a director of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company for many years. The estate, where he spent much of his time, which he purchased for $300,000, had 139 buildings, grain fields and herds of cattle. He also owned sixteen four-story townhouses on Park Avenue built by his father in 1871. which, at the time of the construction, it was one of the tallest buildings that utilized the bolted connections. The 32-story building was open in 1957 with National Biscuit Company, Kaye Scholer, Chemical Corn Exchange Bank as major tenants. It too was torn down and replaced by a new tower at 425 Park Avenue designed by architect Norman, Lord Foster, still on land owned by the Goelet family.

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, and Mary married the sculptor and polo player Charles Cary Rumsey in 1910.

In 1920, he became engaged to Anne Marie Guestier (1899–1988), and later married her in Bordeaux on January 24, 1921. 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." who married Hayward Ferry Manice, son of William DeForest Manice, in 1948. Robert Guestier Goelet (1924–2019), a former Lt. in the U.S. Navy Reserve who was elected a director of the Chemical Bank in 1952. Francis Goelet (1926–1998), a noted philanthropist and patron of the arts who died unmarried. John Goelet (1931-2023), who married Henrietta Fanner, daughter of William Rogers Fanner, and later lived in Paris. In his will, he left the Ritz-Carlton Hotel to Harvard University. His widow lived almost another 47 years until her death in 1988.

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