Robert I. Toll
| Robert Irwin Toll | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 December 1940 |
| Residence | Miami Beach, Florida |
| Nationality | United States |
| Education | B.A. Cornell University L.L.B. University of Pennsylvania Law School |
| Occupation | businessman |
| Known for | co-founder of Toll Brothers |
| Spouse(s) | Jane Toll |
| Children | five |
| Family | Bruce E. Toll (brother) |
Robert Irwin Toll (December 30, 1940) co-founded the American luxury homebuilder company Toll Brothers.
Born to a Jewish family, the son of Sylvia (née Steinberg) and Albert Toll, he grew up in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. His father, who emigrated from Ukraine, was a millionaire investor who lost everything in the . 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 1963, he graduated with a B.A. from Cornell University; and in 1966, he earned a LLB degree, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In 1967, Toll and his brother Bruce E. Toll founded Toll Brothers with a focus on building luxury homes ($500,000+) starting with a plot of land in Chester County, Pennsylvania given to them by their father. 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. Bruce was responsible for the book-keeping and Robert the legal side of the business. In the late 1980s, they expanded out of the Northeast to Washington, D.C. and in the mid-1990s, to California. The Tolls are credited with mass-producing luxury housing by taking a few standard home styles and increasing the scale several fold. 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).
In 2010, Toll stepped down as CEO of Toll Brothers although he still remains active in its management. In November 2013, Toll Brothers purchased Shapell Homes (founded by Nathan Shapell) for $1.6 billion.
In 1990, the Tolls sponsored 58 third graders in a program called Say Yes to Education guarantying a college education to each of them. 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. He has been a long-time fundraiser for the American Red Cross and the American Cancer Society.
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