Robert Walton Goelet (March 19, 1880 – May 2, 1941) was a 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), 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. 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, 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 ), 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". 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. 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