Robert Wilson Goelet

On June 14, 1904, Goelet married Marie Elsie Whelen (1880–1959)^[15] in Philadelphia with Alice Roosevelt as one of her bridesmaids.^[16][17] She was the daughter of Henry Whelan Jr., a prominent banker from Philadelphia, and the sister of Laura Whelan, who was married to Craig Biddle (brother of Anthony Joseph Drexel Biddle).^[18] Before their divorce in 1914^[19] (she later remarried to the artist Henry Clews Jr. and moved to the Chateau de la Napoule in France^[20]), they were the parents of two sons:^[21]

• Ogden Goelet (1907–1969),^[22] who married five times, the first being to Florence Enid Connfelt (1912–1992) in 1933.^[23] They divorced in 1938,^[24] and later that year, he married Maria Virginia Zimbalist (1915–1981), the daughter of singer Alma Gluck and violinist Efrem Zimbalist.^[25] They divorced in March 1941,^[26] and in April 1941, he married Mimi Nicholson Browne (1922),^[27] whom he also divorced.^[28] He later married for the fifth time to Sarah Sherborne Haigh (1908–1989) in 1963,^[29] remaining married until his death in 1969.^[30]
• Peter Goelet (1911–1986)^[22]

On October 22, 1919, he remarried to Donna Fernanda (née Rocchi), the Princess Riabouchinsky (1885–1982) at the American Church in Paris. Donna was born in Perugia, Italy and was the former wife of Prince Nicholas Riabouchinsky,^[14][31] a close friend of Goelet.^[2][32] The marriage reportedly infuriated his mother, who refused to receive his wife, and she cut him off from his share in her personal fortune, closed her New York home, her Newport home, and went to England to live.^[33] They eventually won over his mother four years later after the birth of a son,^[33] but the couple divorced in 1924 and she was later known as the Duchess de Villarosa. Donna and Robert were the parents of one son:^[34]

• Robert Wilson Goelet, Jr. (1921–1989), a film producer who first married Jane Potter Monroe in 1942.^[35] They divorced, and in 1949, he remarried to Lynn Merrick. After their marriage, his mother disinherited him.^[36] After a "stormy" marriage, they divorced in 1956.^[37]

On September 24, 1925, he married for the third time to Roberta Willard (1891–1949),^[38] the daughter of Col. Joseph Willard of Newport. Roberta had reportedly been voted "the prettiest debutante there in 1916."^[39][40] Both of their mothers were ill and could not attend the wedding, with her mother dying a month later,^[41] and his mother, a few years later in 1929.^[3] Together they were the parents of a daughter:

• Mary Eleanor Goelet (1927–1994)^[42] who married (and later divorced) James Eliot Cross in 1949.^[43] She later married Harold C. King.^[44]

Following his donation of Ochre Court in 1947, he purchased a home known as Champ Soleil, designed by Polhemus & Coffin and located at 601 Bellevue Avenue in Newport.^[b] He served on the boards of Bailey's Beach and the Newport Country Club, both of which were co-founded by his uncle, and which he was one of the largest shareholders. In New York, he was a member of the Knickerbocker Club, the Harvard Club, Turf Club, the St. Nicholas Society, the Piping Rock Club, and the Tuxedo Club.^[1] He also owned a plantation near Charleston, South Carolina,^[27] and was the builder of Glenmere mansion, his estate on the Hudson River built in 1911 and designed by Carrère and Hastings, where he entertained Babe Ruth and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.^[2] Glenmere was a 62-room manor house in the style of an Italian villa set on 1,322 acres.^[33]

Goelet died at his home, 4 East 66th Street in New York City, on February 6, 1966.^[1] His funeral was held at St. Thomas’s and he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. He was worth an estimated $50,000,000 (equivalent to approximately $496,153,846 in 2025 dollars)^[11] at the time of his death.^[1] A month after his death, the Chemical Bank of New York, as executor of his estate, listed his New York apartment, which was the entire sixth floor of the building at the southeast corner of Fifth Avenue and East 66th Street, for sale for $240,000 (equivalent to approximately $2,381,538 in 2025 dollars)^[11].^[46] In October 1966, Goelet's collection of 18th century French furniture, porcelain, and other valuable objects from his New York and Newport homes were auctioned off by Parke-Bernet in New York.^[47]

Through his eldest son Ogden, he was the grandfather of Ogden Goelet Jr. and Enid Goelet (1934–2005), who married Ranald Trask McNeil (1933–2013),^[22] a graduate of Columbia University School of Painting and Sculpture who served with the U.S. Air Force in Korea, in 1955.^[48]

Notes

Sources

• Media related to Robert Wilson Goelet at Wikimedia Commons
• Robert Wilson Goelet at Find a Grave