Robert Toll, Who Mass-Produced ‘McMansions,’ Dies at 81

Robert Toll, who along with his brother constructed an eponymous model of luxurious “McMansions” in america that grew to become dwelling to some 150,000 households, died on Friday at his dwelling in Manhattan. He was 81.

The trigger was Parkinson’s illness, his household mentioned in an announcement.

Mr. Toll, who grew up in a single-family Tudor-style dwelling in suburban Philadelphia, initially pursued legislation as a profession however give up after 9 months. In 1967, he persuaded his father, a house builder, to present him two vacant properties on which he may assemble colonial-style properties that have been totally furnished and adorned.

“We constructed two homes,” Mr. Toll mentioned. “As an alternative of promoting them, we used them as samples for the tons we owned down the road.”

The brothers shortly constructed 20 extra homes close by and offered them for $17,490 every (about $152,000 in at the moment’s cash), reaping a small acquire per dwelling that produced an annual revenue of about $12,000 for all of them. Final yr, the typical value of a house offered by Toll was $1.04 million; earnings have been $833.6 million on revenues of $8.4 billion.

Below the title Toll Brothers, the 2 ultimately created residences for 150,000 households.

Some critics derided their suburban, single-family residences as roomy “McMansions,” evaluating them to a quick meals product — cookie-cutter properties, typically full with hovering foyers and nice rooms and splendid grasp suites, derived from a number of pattern fashions and mass-produced (though Toll Brothers added customized facilities to patrons’ specs).

The corporate expanded from the Northeast to Washington, D.C., within the Eighties after which to California within the Nineteen Nineties. It now operates in 24 states, creating suburban enclaves, communities for older adults and concrete high-rise flats for prosperous owners.

Mr. Toll was the chairman and chief government of Toll Brothers from its founding till 2010; he remained on the board of administrators till lately, when he was named chairman emeritus. He oversaw the authorized elements of the enterprise whereas his youthful brother, Bruce E. Toll, the vice chairman of the board, was liable for the bookkeeping.

Robert Irwin Toll was born on Dec. 30, 1940, in Elkins Park, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb. He was raised in a home constructed by his father, Albert, a Ukrainian immigrant whose brother, Herman, grew to become a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania.

Albert was an actual property dealer, a used-car salesman and an investor, however “he misplaced all the things within the Despair and needed to begin throughout,” Robert Toll wrote as a visitor enterprise columnist in The New York Instances in 2005. His father later grew to become a profitable dwelling builder and industrial property developer. His mom, Sylvia (Steinberg) Toll, was a homemaker.

Bob Toll acquired a bachelor’s diploma in political science from Cornell College in 1963. In 1966, fulfilling his dad and mom’ dream, he graduated from the College of Pennsylvania’s legislation faculty. He beloved legislation faculty, he mentioned, however disliked training legislation.

Certainly one of his purchasers was his father, for whom he did some authorized work on two tons that Albert Toll hoped to develop in Chester County, Pa. When Bob prompt creating the property on his personal, his father balked. However his son conspired with Albert’s companion and Bruce Toll, who was simply graduating from the College of Miami with a significant in accounting, and his father relented.

In 2005, The Actual Deal, a New York actual property journal, requested Mr. Toll in an interview whether or not all of his properties on the time — together with a farmhouse in Bucks County, Pa. — have been McMansions. He replied: “No, in no way. The house in Bucks County has an eight-foot ceiling on the primary flooring. There’s no vaulted ceiling. It’s not an enormous dwelling in comparison with lots of the properties that now we have constructed. I might guess that it’s underneath 5,000 sq. toes.”

Mr. Toll was a wide-ranging philanthropist. He was on the board of the Metropolitan Opera, and his firm grew to become the lead company sponsor of the Met’s Worldwide Radio Community after Chevron-Texaco stopped supporting reside Saturday matinee radio broadcasts in 2005.

Mr. Toll and his spouse began the Robert and Jane Toll Basis, which pledged greater than $50 million to the College of Pennsylvania’s legislation faculty to develop a program that helps college students pursuing careers in public service and social justice. He additionally supported Seeds of Peace, a program born out of a summer time camp he attended as a toddler in Otisfield, Maine; it brings collectively Arab, Israeli, Indian and Pakistani youngsters to advertise peaceable battle decision.

Mr. Toll, who had an earlier marriage, is survived by his spouse, Jane (Snyder Goldfein) Toll; his brother, Bruce; 5 youngsters, Laurie Franz, Deborah Gruelle, Joshua Goldfein, Rachel Toll Grassi and Jacob Toll; and 12 grandchildren.

Douglas C. Yearley Jr., the chief government of Toll Brothers, mentioned of Mr. Toll, “In so some ways, he’s nonetheless with us, and Toll Brothers will all the time be his firm due to what he taught us all.”

As a boss, Mr. Toll was lauded within the trade by numerous skilled organizations. Not all of them, nonetheless, have been conscious of the pitchfork that he stored in his workplace and that he typically wielded throughout conferences to remind his firm’s executives to proceed rigorously in shopping for land or taking different dangers.

“We didn’t need that pitchfork caught in our rear finish,” Mr. Yearley mentioned.