Robert Toll, the co-founder and former chairman and CEO of national homebuilding giant Toll Brothers Inc. died of Parkinson’s disease at 81.  

Toll served as chairman and CEO of Toll Brothers from its founding in 1967 until 2010, after which he remained on the company’s board of directors until recently stepping back to become chairman emeritus. 

“We are heartbroken by the passing of our founder, mentor and dear friend,” Chairman and CEO Douglas Yearley Jr. said in a news release. “All of us who were lucky enough to spend time with Bob have been forever impacted by his huge heart, unique sense of humor, zest for life and profound intelligence. Bob was a brilliant strategist and an incredible teacher and advisor. His lessons have been indelibly etched over the past half century in the minds of the entire Toll Brothers team and many of the industry’s current and future leaders.” 

Toll was born in 1940 and raised in the Philadelphia suburb of Elkins Park. After graduating from Cornell University and The University of Pennsylvania Law School, he practiced law for one year before founding Toll Brothers with his younger brother, Bruce Toll, in 1967. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1986 and eventually became a Fortune 500 enterprise with $9 billion in annual homebuilding revenues.